In the Life of Mystique
by superduder
Summary: In one of the X-Men movies, Mystique mentions how her family tried to kill her. Find out what happened to her through a flash-back told by her only high school friend, and eventual soul-mate, in this addition to the X-Men trilogy timeline. Also learn what became of her after X-Men: The Last Stand, due to her downfall in saving Magneto from the Mutant X gene cure.
1. Chapter 1

"Lately I find myself in the mood for a good story, Blake, so please. Enlighten me on the subject about you and Mystique." Professor Xavier told me this in his rustic-looking office in the school for mutant children. Or really, "gifted children," as the sign says outside. In truth it really is a much better term for these people than "mutants." I don't know, to me that just sounds derogatory. _Mutant_. It's surprising that in such a politically correct world we live in today that that's correct terminology. What were the taxologists thinking?

His request confused me, so I couldn't help but retort with, "How do you mean?"

"I'd like to know about your relationship with Mystique. When did it start? Where do you know her from? It's not often I find humans and mutants in these kinds of relationships. I'm simply asking you to recount your experiences with her."

There was something about the old fellow's gaze which enchanted me. Something about his demeanor suggested patience and wisdom.

"I'm sorry, but can't you read minds?" I asked him.

"Why, yes, but it would take me far too long to filter out months, probably years of your memories to find the important ones and piece together the story. Couldn't you just tell me?"

He seemed to really care for some reason about my "story." This wasn't really a problem for me seeing how I didn't have anything better to do anyway.

"Why don't you start from the beginning?"

I paused looking at him for a moment and sighed. "Well, alright. I guess I don't really have anything better to do anyway right now."

"If you tell me, we'll help you find her."

"Sure, whatever."

* * *

So, where to begin. I suppose the best place to start would be when I moved to a small East-coast town. My parents had moved me there after some crap that happened to me back in Phoenix. It's not important, though.

My parents drove me into the town with the moving van on a Sunday, and we had finished unpacking our crap onto the driveway. Mom drove me around for a bit just to gain some familiarity with everything, you know? Standard stuff. The area was sort of quiet with tall trees and lots of forestry. The buildings were a little old fashioned, and everyone seemed to love going to church. One church, I might add, along with one high school, one grocery store, and one or two of a couple of other things. Yeah, it was tiny. The residents ranged to almost two-thousand max. There were plenty of two-story houses (like our new one) with really slanted roofs. I guess that's 'cause Phoenix doesn't get any snow, so we don't really need them as much or anything. They were often white and made of wood planks on the outside. The air was always feeling fresh from rain and misty, with a slight chill. Phoenix is just gummy and hot outside. It was a cute little town that smelled a little like camping.

It was early in the school year when that thing happened, so I started out at the local high school about two months after it started, making me a new student. I have to admit, there's something neat about being the new guy. It's sort of like coming in fashionably late, you know? Except nobody actually knows me, so it's even better.

I got up on Monday in my new house which was freezing inside, and it was pitch dark outside. I lazily crawled out of bed and got dressed and ready for school, which was like five blocks away or something. Seriously, like, I could walk there and everything which was cool, but yeah...

It wasn't long before people really started talking to me. One dude came up on my way to school.

"Hey are you the new guy?" He asked.

"Yeah, sure."

"I'm Gary."

"Blake."

Where are you from?"

"Phoenix, Arizona."

"Oh, wow. No wonder you're so dark."

"You think so? Hold on. Check this out." We stopped a moment to pull back my sock and reveal a wicked tan line.

"Jesus!"

"Yeah, right?"

"Was everyone like that?"

"Ummm, quite a lot actually. What grade are you?"

"Junior."

"Hey, me too."

Gary was a pale, skinny looking dude plastered with freckles, but slightly taller than me. We talked for a bit until some of his other friends joined us and were introduced to me. By the time we got to the school, I had already met Suzanne who was Gary's sister, Brett who was like a small little kid in high school, and a few other overly-talkative ones whose names I can't remember. We chatted for a while in the hallways until the bell rang.

The classes themselves were okay, too. It's a little tricky trying to follow what's happening, though, since most teachers were in the middle of a unit. I'll tell you, though, it all started to go downhill in third period English. Don't get me wrong. Our teacher, Ms. Weathers, was cool and all. It's just that she asked me to say a few things about myself, but I couldn't really think of anything.

"Well, I don't know. Ummm, I have kidneys, and I shower naked."

It was pretty obvious that she had to stifle a laugh, but everyone else seemed confused.

"Alright then, thank you Blake. Let's continue now."

It was then that some asshole to my right nudged me.

"Everyone showers naked and has kidneys, stupid."

"Thank you, Captain Obvious."

The joke had flown right over everyone's head. What was wrong with these people? Did they not understand sarcasm or something? The guy just looked even more confused now and dismissed it.

Things didn't get much better during lunch as I sat with those people mentioned earlier. I thought they were alright until now. We ate at one of the lunch tables in the cafeteria and had extra room. This is when I first saw Raven. Obviously I didn't know her at the time, but a rather attractive girl with black hair stopped by us a second.

"Hey, can I sit here?" She asked. Holy shit! A hot girl actually wants to sit with me and a couple of other dweebs? Let alone on the first day I come to school! That's like accidentally finding a twenty on the ground, 'cause usually the hot ones already have plenty of other friends. The clear answer was "yes," but...

She seemed to be directing the question at me, but everyone else at the table just shook their heads while looking down. She saw that and sadly sulked away from us.

I turned my head towards the others and was like, "What was that? A smoking babe asks to sit with you nerds and you tell her_no_? What the hell's wrong with you!?"

Gary looked at me, "Umm, Blake. I think you'd better not go near her. She's, uhh—complicated."

"Complicated? How?" I was so mad at them.

"It's hard to explain. I'll just tell you later." I tried looking at the others but they seemed to agree silently. What could possibly be wrong with her? Did she have some horrible disease, or was she a cannibal? Did she kidnap everyone's cats and throw them all off a cliff? What could be so fucking wrong with her to make everyone mutually and outwardly reject her like that? Christ!

I didn't get my answer that day. Gary and the others seemed to try and avoid the topic as long as possible by refusing to answer me. The last I saw them that day was during the passing period after lunch, anyway. The deal was hard to focus on after that while trying to jump in the middle of two more class units until school was over. Today I remember that lunch to death just because of the impact it had in hindsight, but at the time I sort of forgot about it to my homework that night and whatnot.

On the way to lunch the next day the thought came back to me.

"Oh, hey dude, you still didn't tell me about that chick from yesterday."

"Who?" He was avoiding the topic again, I could tell.

"The one who came up to us at lunch that you rudely rejected, Gary."

"Right, yeah," He sighed. "Listen. Other people have tried to make friends with her back then, but she just has problems."

"Like—?" What the hell was going one? No one has any sort of definite answer. They're all dancing around it like pansies.

"Just trust me. Once you get to know her, you'll wish you didn't."

I was about done with this idiot. "You know what, fuck you. I'm going to find her anyway just because you won't tell me shit!" Then I left him.

It got kind of awkward then, 'cause she didn't seem to actually be in the lunch room that day. Quickly I left and started wandering the halls past other kids to see if I could find her somewhere. After all, it's not like she wasn't at school that day. The girl was in English with me, sitting in some discreet back corner from everyone else, but nevertheless there. That way she's a junior, too. I still couldn't find her, though, nor the next day, nor the day after that. Almost when I lost hope and had to go back to my normal table, there she was; in line for buying lunch. Yes! Finally I could get to know this babe. Lonely chicks are hot, anyway. Only five days of being in this new school and I'm already meeting girls.

This might sound kind of rapey, but I think I watched her the whole time in line, and even as she got out with her food and sat down at some table by herself. Shit yeah, now was my chance! I didn't even get lunch, but rather stepped out of line and went to go sit at her table. She looked over as I came and tried avoiding eye contact, probably thinking I was just passing by or something. Nope.

"Hey, can I sit here?"

She looked up at me and nodded slightly, chewing on a pear. I like it when they're shy.

"Sorry about the other day. I don't know what those guy's problem was, 'cause seriously, that was like the douchiest thing I've ever seen."

She smiled but didn't look up. Instead she had her eyes focused on a book.

"I'm Blake. I just moved here a few days ago—Whatcha reading?"

"Great Gatsby," She replied.

"Right, our book for English. Maybe I should get on that soon, huh?"

She continued reading for kind of an uncomfortable minute until I gave up.

"I'm probably just bothering you, aren't I?"

"No, sorry." She closed the book over a notecard. "It's just good, that's all. I'm Raven Darkholme."

Wow, what a name! Darkholme! I wasn't shy of letting her know, either, and repeated it in a gruff, old English accent for emphasis.

"Raven Darkholme of Antioch! That's a great name." She blushed and said, "thanks."

In a nasally voice I joked about my own name. "I'm Blake _Caaaarlson_, can I answer any questions about your Toshiba TV antenna?"

We both mildly laughed at this. It was then that I looked over and saw she was like three quarters through the book.

"Aren't we on chapter three of _Gatsby_?"

"Yeah, why? Am I not allowed to read ahead?"

"No, but, I don't know. Is it good?"

"I think so. I just like reading a lot."

"Hey, me too." That was so a lie. I never read anything if I didn't have to. I think she caught on that I was lying, though.

"Oh, really? Who's your favorite author?"

Quickly I racked my brain for something I may have read with a name attached to it. It then occurred to me that I distinctly remember a guy's name next to something from a magazine.

"Richard Fegley."

Her eyes lit up. Clearly she was impressed because she had never heard of this fellow before.

"Ooh, what has he written?"

This was getting really bad. Now I was lying to cover up lies. I took a deep breath.

"Well, he writes a lot of articles—for, um—_Time_."

"Hmm."

God came to save me then, when my stomach growled loud enough for her to hear.

"Where's your lunch?" She asked.

"Uhh, I lost my money."

"Awww, I have some extra if you want."

"No thanks. Food is overrated anyway."

We chatted for a little until something kind of odd happened.

"Hey, what was that?" I asked.

"What?"

"Your eyes just—" It seemed they had flickered another color for a second. I thought it may have been the way the light hit them from the ceiling, but right then she got up and left.

"Oh, sorry, I have to go."

"Okay, then, see you tomorrow?"

Too late, though. She was gone out the door.


	2. Chapter 2

I did see her again, though. We started regularly eating lunch together the next week despite more ridiculous warnings and discretions from my friends.

"Seriously, you really shouldn't hang out with her."

"Dude, I don't know what your problem is, but she's totally fine. She's just kind of quiet is all."

Boy, whatever it was, no one liked to talk about it. Something was apparently wrong about Raven, but no one has the balls to just say, "She's a crack whore," or whatever it is.

"Gary's right, Blake. She's not someone worth knowing. It's like once you know someone in real life and they turn out to be really annoying, but it's too late 'cause they think you're friends with them now."

"Is that what it is, Brett? She's just annoying?"

"Well, no. I was just being hypothetical."

"God damn you guys. Why can't anyone just give me a straight answer?"

"Because you might not believe us." Gary let slip.

Okay, this was starting to get really weird. Apparently there was something wrong with Raven, but the actual story behind it is so fantastical that I might not believe it? Just then the bell rang, though. Jesus, it's like whenever conversations come to a really weird climax they're always interrupted by some external force. I went and sat with Raven anyway.

"Hey Raven."

"Hi Blake. Something wrong?"

"What?"

I was staring intently at her face trying to see something but not knowing what to look for.

"You're staring at me weird."

"Right. Sorry."

"What's up?"

I didn't stop staring at her, though. Nothing was inherently different or weird about her face or anything. Eventually I couldn't help it.

"Raven, why does everyone seem to hate you?"

Wow that was mean. I wasn't trying to be, though. It just appeared like no one liked her or anything all for the same mystical reason. She looked back down at her food and just said:

"I don't know."

"Everyone keeps telling me not to hang out with you but won't actually say why. Someone said I might not believe them if they told me."

"Because people are just dumb, I guess."

"It must be, 'cause you look and act alright. I can't find anything weird about you at all."

"Who's everyone, anyway?"

"I don't know, just some friends."

"Friends who tell you there's something wrong with me?"

Ooh, that stung. Now I felt like a real asshole.

"Never mind. I shouldn't even have brought it up. By the way, how far are you in _Gatsby_?"

Really the only class we had together was English, so that book stole a lot of our conversations.

"I finished that a while ago."

"Right. Forget it then, I don't want any spoilers."

I tried getting into books lately just so we'd have something to connect to, and that I wouldn't be a liar. I thought at the time it was impressive of me to read _one_ chapter ahead of everyone else. Now, though, I was acting like I liked the book. Not to say that I didn't, but it's kind of hard to follow.

"They all die in the end."

"Really, how?"

She giggled at my incompetency. Oh well. She probably thought it was cute, anyway.

"I'm kidding, they don't."

"Oh wow, I'm an idiot."

"Not really."

"Yes really."

"Stop being so hard on yourself. You are not an idiot. Tell me, what are your grades like?"

It was about then she caught on I wasn't that great at reading after all, not that I was any master of disguise or anything. Instead she was probably going to say I was just better at other subjects or something.

"A couple C's and B's."

"Well—it could be worse."

"What are you, straight A's?"

She gave a small nod again, clearly trying to be modest.

"I wish I could be as smart as you," I said.

"Why can't you?"

"Because homework is just the worst thing. I'd rather someone cut my toes off with hedge clippers than sit and write notes about a chapter or some crap like that."

"Eww, God. You would not."

"Well, no. It's just exaggeration anyway. But hey, we should hang out sometime."

"Like when?"

"I don't know, Saturday or something?"

"I have a test for American History on Monday, so I don't think that'll work."

"Well, okay. You need the whole day to study, though?

"I don't know, maybe."

That Saturday I didn't even really care, anyway. It was really boring at my house, and I had no money or anything. Gary and the others were all busy too, so what else was there to do than bug Raven? I had already known where she lived anyway. Last Monday I had walked with her all the way to her house and didn't realize until we got there that _my_ house was the opposite direction.

"Where do you live by the way?" She had asked.

"Ummm, not here. Shoot. I think it's that way."

"Oh, okay. Well, see you later then."

Her house was kind of nice. It was one of those houses there's plenty of with white wooden planks, a steep roof, and two floors. Her room was upstairs with the window on the front side. There was a rather large pine tree right close to the front, too. No one has actual yards here though. In Phoenix backyards would be separated by large cinder block fences. Here every yard is the same natural, forest floor-looking turf. Really it's like someone just plopped houses side by side along a road and that's it.

What I guessed was Raven's mom came to the door and put on her bitchiest face.

"What do you want?"

"Is Raven home?"

This kind of wrinkly middle-aged blonde raised her eyebrow and appeared to be completely baffled that such a request could be.

"She's studying. What do you want?"

What do I want? What does she think I want, to deliver postage? Now _I_ was baffled.

"Well, just to, uh, hang out or someth—"

My words trailed off. God, she wouldn't stop staring at me with those demonic eyes, as if I had made fun of her ass or something. Why was this such an ordeal, I wondered. Was it really just so odd that a human being wants to socialize with her daughter?

"I'll let her know you asked, alright?"

"Sure, okay."

She then shut the door in my face, and to my relief, too. Thank God Raven's window was right up front. I stared in from ground level but couldn't really see anything but the ceiling of her bedroom. Her door opened with a hand on it, which was obviously her mom's. It stayed open for like a minute and then shut again, which probably means she was interrogating about "the meaning of this boy!" Is _that_ what everyone has such a problem with? This crazy ass mom of her's?

It was only eight in the morning, though, so it didn't make sense really to be studying for a test early on Saturday. So me and my body climbed up this here tree to make even level with her window. Well—her mom wasn't lying. She really was just sitting there at her desk with some textbook open. I plucked a pinecone off one of the branches and threw it at her window to get her attention. She looked over at me and smiled, and came over to the window to open it.

"Hey Blake, my mom just told me you were at the door."

"Yeah, I know. It was really weird."

"Huh?"

"Come outside. Why are you studying on a Saturday?"

"Success?"

"Come on. Don't you know that it's unholy not to enjoy yourself on a Saturday?"

"It is not!"

"Is so."

"Later, Blake. I'm busy."

"Come _oooooooooonnn_!" I whined.

"No Blake. You're just going to have to wait."

"_Uuuuuuggghhhh._"

She then shut the window on me and went back to her desk. I didn't feel like giving up yet, though. I started goofing around on the tree branch to make it harder for her to concentrate. I started flexing muscles and mouthing _You know you want it_, and shit like that. She grinned at her book 'cause I was clearly visible in her peripheral. Either that or she was just looking over at me with her eyes. I then saw a squirrel sitting on the same branch to my right and reached for it, just so it could scamper off, and made a "dumb-guy" hand gesture at it. She really tried blocking me out then. Ha! No one can escape my attention if I can't help it!

I sat seductively on the tree branch, licked my fingers, and started rubbing my nipple from under my shirt. Pretty stupid, I know, but she looked over and burst out laughing. She finally came over to the window again and opened it.

"What are you doing, you nut?"

"Come outside!"

"No!"

And she shut it again and closed the curtains. I crawled along a different branch which hovered over the slanted patio roof just under her window and plopped down onto it. She heard me knocking constantly at the window and rushed over to it again.

"Do you mind? My mom is going to hear you!"

"Not until you come outside." Even then I continued knocking at the empty air space where the window used to be. She sighed.

"Alright, fine. Just give me like five minutes, okay?"

"Hooray!" And I threw my arms into the air and slid down the roof and onto the ground.

She came out in a bit and shut the door quickly behind her. She was wearing a maroon scarf which complemented her cheeks flushed from the cold air.

"So what do you wanna do?" She asked.

"I don't know. Wanna walk somewhere?"

"Sure. Like where"

"Fffffffffforward."

"You have no idea, do you?"

"Naw."

We started just trumping along anyway. Her house was at the end of the street right next to the woods, which was pretty cool. We went along in there, though, and just talked for a while about some funny shit we heard going around and whatever. Eventually we came across the lake which contained a bunch of kids _swimming_ of all things.

"How the hell could they possibly be swimming right now! It's gotta be fucking cold!"

"Mmmm, maybe a little."

"Are you serious? I can't stand water in the _summer_, let alone near the brink of winter!"

"They're probably just trying to get in a last minute douse before winter officially hits."

There were a lot, too. Like about half of the junior class was there. It looked like the god damned beach with all these kids lying out on towels. In fact, three of them started coming up to us. One a blonde, and the other two brunettes, following shortly behind her.

"Oh no." Raven sighed.

"Huh?"

The chick stopped short of us. I have to admit, she was really cute looking in her two-piece. Her friends looked pretty good too, I guess.

"Hey you're the new guy, right?" The blonde said.

"I've been here about two weeks now, but yeah. I guess."

"Why don't you come hang with us?"

"No thanks, I'm uh—"

It was odd wording, so instead I just kind of pointed with my thumb at Raven. Looking over she appeared to be kind of tense for some reason.

"Oh, don't worry about that bitch, just come over and swim with us."

God damn, I got it. Raven was unpopular with these particular girls. Shit, that was really rude. But wait, she wasn't done.

"Raven, fuck off already and stop tricking all the new guys into liking you."

She had really done it now. Raven was quietly urging me to just come along and get away from these people. Fuck that. I may be too above beating up other girls, but that didn't stop me from choosing the next best thing.

"Uh, 'scuse me but, why don't you go do the world a favor and shove your Dad's cock up your ass!"

Boy that really did it. The blonde's face grew bright red and confused, and Raven couldn't help but turn her head to one side and wheeze into her sleeve.

"Ex_cuse me_!?" The blonde exclaimed. I couldn't believe how much of a tool she was. Wow, like, she was the bitchiest prep cunt piece of shit I'd ever seen. That only provoked me farther.

"My apologies. Please allow me to elaborate. (Ahem) I am requesting of you, you blonde cunt standing over there, to provide favor to the residents of this here town by acquiring the genitals currently possessed by your male forbearers and insert them through the open sphincters of your anuses."

She burst out, "You know, I thought you were cool at first, but actually you're just fucking disgusting! And you, shut the fuck up. It's not funny!"

Raven had given up hiding it and just started laughing hysterically off to my side. I looked at the blonde again.

"That's my friend you're throwing your shit at, so fuck off you stupid cunt whore piece-o-shit!"

Her and her two friends started backing off and running back to the lake. The friend to her left looked back and shouted:

"We're telling our boyfriends and they're gonna kick your ass!"

"Good! I can't wait. Show me the dumbasses who put up with your shit and I'll fuck 'em up!"

They took off around the bushes finally. Raven was just now calming down.

"Oh my god, I can't believe you just did that!"

"Raven, who the hell were those bitches, and why do they hate you too?"

"Never mind that, Blake, you'd better apologize or something 'cause their boyfriends are _mean_!"

"Hang on. They weren't bluffing?"

"No. Whenever someone upsets them or they don't get their way, they just have their dumb football boyfriends beat up whoever they want."

"Well shit. Two weeks in and I'm already picking fights with people somehow. How big are they even?"

"Pretty big, which is why I'm telling you to apologize or something."

"Why would I do that? They were asking for it."

"Because they always win. Every time they fight someone, it's usually just them punching their face into the ground."

I admit, I was a tad bit scared. I wouldn't back down, though, 'cause it was a matter of principle now. After all, pain is temporary; shame lasts forever. I learned that the hard way.

"Well then, I'll just have to get my face punched in, 'cause I got nothing to apologize for."

She sighed. "Oh my god, Blake."

We continued walking for a while, making a huge circle around the lake and talking all the while until we came up a hill and stopped at a cliff outlooking the whole lake. It seemed like five hundred feet up. Raven and I sat down there looking at everyone swim so far out in the distance. The school could be seen from here along with a lot of the houses.

"It's kind of cool up here," I said.

"I like to come up here a lot. It's quiet and there aren't a lot of people around. It must be because it's kind of hard climbing all the way up here."

Now that she mentioned it, she was breathing sort of heavy and perspiration formed around her face. I guess me too, so whatever. We just sat there for a while overlooking everything and listening to the sounds of high altitude wind, all the while thinking about the blonde's boyfriend.

"It's a nice place to go when you're sad," she said eventually. That kind of perturbed me seeing how far we were from the surface of the lake. As I thought about it, this is also a great place to commit suicide for reasons like if you're _sad_.

"Yeah? What kinds of things make you sad?"

She sat there for a bit processing a response.

"I guess it just gets kind of lonely sometimes."

"Are you glad I'm here?"

"Well of course I am."

"Phoenix was kind of lonely too. Everyone in my grade was just retarded."

Raven lied back with her hands behind her head. "Oh yeah? How so?"

"Lots of different reasons, really. Guys would yell stupid shit in hallways, and say things like 'Ohhhhhhh.' They would slap each other's asses and hold their hands over their dicks for no reason. Girls were ditsy and narcissists. They would wear skimpy clothing to school and give guys shit for looking. They're all just annoying assholes."

"It's not much different here. I get you, though. I can't stand it either."

"In your case, Raven, there's something everyone seems to know that I don't. That's why the stupid bitch earlier was so rude to you right?"

"I'd rather not talk about it."

I sat back too with my hands folded over my chest. "When are you gonna talk about it?"

"How about February thirtieth?"

"You mean March first?"

"No, I mean never."

"Oh. That's too bad."

We sat in silence for a while just looking up. She finally sighed.

"I might show you someday, but just not right now." She then stood up and brushed herself off. I followed suit and we both started making our way back down the hill and towards home.

When we got back to her house, we said goodbye and she opened her front door to be greeting by her asshole mom.

"Where were you!? You were supposed to be home studying!"

"I just needed a break, mom. I'm sorry!" She said walking in.

"Get back upstairs and quit screwing around! And you're not going to let your grades drop over some b—" and the door shut only to let by muffled scorning. It made me feel really bad for making her come out in the first place, like I got her in really bad trouble.

On Monday I saw her at lunch again and apologized for that.

"It's fine, Blake. She does that all the time. Pretty much whenever I go out she goes into conniptions."

"That's terrible! How could someone constantly be mad about you going outside like that?"

"She's just worried about my schooling."

"Pffft. Fuck that. A couple hours of your life not spent studying isn't going to make you fail in life."

One thing I noticed is that whenever I went on rants about certain things, Raven acts like she's disregarding it but can't help grinning at the same time. It makes me think that deep down she thinks the same way but is just hiding it since everyone in her life tells her she's wrong. It's really kind of sad. No wonder she needs a place to go and be alone.

While staring at her again in my weird way, the bitch-hoe blonde was pointing at me from a separate table and talking to some guy.

"Shit," I breathed.

Raven turned around to see what I was looking at.

"Yeah, that's him alright," she responded. The guy was this sort of tall looking muscular douche who broke eye contact with us when we looked over and continued talking with bitch-hoe.

"Yeah, you're right. That's a pretty big guy."

"See what I mean? She's probably talking about you right now."

"Alright, then, looks like he's gonna come over and beat the shit out of me."

"No he's not. We can't fight on school grounds, so he'll probably do it after school."

Raven is really sharp, 'cause bitch-hoe's douche came over to me on my way home from school later, and my stomach twisted into a knot to see he was almost a head taller than me.

"Hey, Blake is it?" He called.

"Yeah. What do you want?"

It occurred to me later that I sort of provoked him.

"Stacy tells me you were being gross and telling her to do something with her dad's cock or something?" God damn, these small-towns folk really don't forget shit, do they?

"Is that her name? Stacy? Yeah, um, she started being a bitch-bag to my friend for no reason, so I just told her off."

"So what, you really did tell her all that nasty shit?"

"_Because_ she was being an asshole!"

Douche folded his arms in front of me and took on this kind of condescending tone.

"Alright, look. I know you're new here, so you don't really get things. Just go apologize to my _girlfriend_ and I'll let you go."

"Hey, I don't got shit to apologize for. She should be apologizing to my friend for being such an asshole."

"I don't wanna fight you, kid. Just tell her you're sorry and we'll call things off."

"Fuck you. Control your damn girlfriend, how 'bout?"

"Do you want me to kick your ass, fuck-face!?"

"Yeah, cunt-breath! Let's go!"

In hindsight that was probably the worst fight I had ever gotten in. Not necessarily performance-wise, although that was a little lacking, too. It's just that I once heard some quote that said something about how in war there's no winners, but people who suffered less than the opponent. That really applies here, I think. Most other fights in Phoenix would end within three minutes when we hear police sirens down the street. This one lasted about seven. In fact I'm not sure how it even ended. I think his friends came up and just kicked me in the stomach and they all left. Mom was mad at me later.

"Goddamn it Blake, this is why we moved in the first place! I'm beginning to think you started that thing back there in the first place!"

Again, I'm still not telling you about that. Anyway, though, the next day there was a lot of buzz going around about it.

Gary came up to me that day. "Jesus, Blake! What happened! Did you and Josh both get in a fight?"

I guess I had a lot of bruises and lashes on my face and arms. I sighed, "Yeah."

"What the hell about?"

"Nothing. Just forget it."

Raven made me feel a little better about it, though.

"Looks like you held up."

"Christ! That was miserable."

"You're not the only one feeling that way, you know."

"Why, is Josh upset that his face isn't baby smooth anymore?"

"Just look!" She pointed at him across the hallway at his locker. I didn't see the big deal. He still wasn't as bruised as me.

"You actually gave him one for. I'm impressed!"

"You really think so?"

"I know so. Usually he kind of brags about his beatings. This is the first time seeing him shut up about it."

"How do you know so much about Josh, anyway?"

"The idiot sits next to me in Trigonometry with his friends."

"Ahh, that sucks."

Josh really didn't want to make eye contact all day. I was a little proud of myself for all of this, though. So proud I even wanted to make it up to him. That night I vowed on making friends with Josh.


	3. Chapter 3

The next day, Raven and I were walking down the hallway and saw Josh and Stacy walking side-by-side. They really did look adorable together despite Josh's facial lacerations.

"Hey Josh, my man. What's hangin' dude!" I called. He looked at me all confused, especially when I high-fived him. Before he had time to question it Raven and I left.

"What was that?" She asked.

"Psychological warfare. Make the enemy feel guilty, you know?"

"Smart."

"By the way, where do you go when you're not in the cafeteria during lunch?"

"Oh, um, Ms. Weathers room."

"Isn't the door always shut, though?"

"She just doesn't like all the noise in the hallway."

"Oh, okay."

This was particularly interesting to me, 'cause now I know where she went on the Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday when I was first trying to find her the one week. Also there was something on my mind.

"Why do you ask? Something on your mind?"

I paused for a brief period, wondering whether I should bother doing it today or not.

"Ummm—I t's 'cause I'll be busy at lunch today. Gotta make up some crap for Chemistry."

"Oh, okay. And you're just worried I'll be lonely at lunch?"

"Well, of course. That would just be too mean of me to leave you without warning."

"Awwww, you're so sweet."

She pinched my cheek, and I gave kind of a dumb-guy giggle as a joke. Truthfully, though, I liked it a lot. Yeah, the process involved in me hitting on a chick and going out with her is really slow. Usually too slow, 'cause this other girl I was hitting on back in Phoenix got a boyfriend who she only knew for like a week literally right when I was thinking about asking her out.

Later at lunch I scanned the cafeteria for Raven. No Raven. Then I scanned it for Josh and/or Stacy. Hey, what do you know! There they both were, sitting together with a few other giant football players and their girlfriends. There was a wide spot to sit at in front of the two loveducks, and I was luckily feeling pretty bold—and stupid.

"Hiya Josh!" I sat down right smack in the spot I spoke of, with one of his beefy friends to my right. That guy noticed too.

"Hey little man, I didn't say you could sit here."

"But you didn't say I couldn't either. Don't worry, I won't be too long."

"Josh, you know this kid?"

Josh looked over at me. "What do you want?"

As much as I hate _other_ people who are condescending, this was pretty fuckin' fun.

"I just wanted to tell you that was a good fuckin' fight we had, huh?"

"Umm, no it wasn't actually." His friends were chuckling with their mouths full. It was pretty obvious I was embarassing Josh right now. Again with the psychological warfare thing.

"No? You don't think so?"

"No. Are you done?"

"Seriously. There weren't even any police to break it up like they do back in Phoenix. You really pack a good punch."

"Thhhhhanks, I guess."

"I swear to God, I'm still feeling that elbow in my cheek, dude."

"You're not such a bad fighter yourself to be honest."

"Hey, thanks, but I don't know. In the end, I have more bruises than you."

It occurred to me now that he was starting to warm up to me. That was good. I don't want to make enemies so quickly in the new town. He then added:

"No, really though. I don't think I've ever fought anyone as tough as you."

"And yeah, most thugs back in my old town would pull a knife on you. I'll bet you didn't even have one, right?"

"No one carries a knife here, are you crazy?"

"Oh shit, really? Maybe I should quit bringing mine to school, huh?"

He laughed pretty hard at this. His girlfriend then made kind of an annoyed face.

"You guys are so stupid. How could you possibly be so chill after doing this to each other?"

Josh told her, "I don't know Stacy, guys just don't hold grudges like girls do."

I intervened a second, "Oh that's right, you exist, which reminds me. Stacy?"

She looked over at me.

"I'm sorry for being so insulting the other day. It was really immature and ill-thought out of me. I could have acted much better, but I didn't."

She was kind of surprised at this. Maybe Josh had beaten my ass pretty hard after all, I'm guessing she thought. She responded, "Sure, Blake. It's okay."

"But now that we're on more equal terms, I want to ask you—" The way I forced communication with Stacy after our feud made a pretty hysterical expression on her face. I see what Raven was laughing at now.

"Why were you saying those things to Raven. I'm not trying to be mad or anything, 'cause it seems like everyone else in this goddamn school is on your side. I literally just want to know what it is about Raven that is such a fuss with everyone."

She looked at me seriously for a moment and finally came up with, "You're gonna laugh."

"Huh?"

"If I tell you, you're just gonna think I'm an idiot, so no. I won't tell you."

"For fuck's sake! What is it about all you fucking people who don't want to say anything!? What is she goddamnit? Is she a prostitute? A heroin junky? A Crip? Blood? Succubus? Harpy? Demon—?"

Stacy flinched all of a sudden.

"What?"

"Nothing."

I paused, and then it hit me.

"Is that it? A demon? You all think she's a demon!?"

She took a deep breath and huffed. "Yes Blake. She's a Demon. I know it sounds ridiculous, and you probably think we're crazy, but it's just the truth. Go ahead, Blake. Laugh. Laugh at me and tell me I'm an idiot for thinking th—"

"Hey now, I'm not one with a closed mind. Tell me, though. How did you come to this conclusion?"

She looked at me long and hard. "I personally haven't really seen anything, but I think about twelve different girls have told us back in elementary school what once happened at a sleepover party. In the morning one of the girls woke up and saw some freaky shit monster looking-thing sleeping in her sleeping bag, and when the girl screamed and woke everyone up, the thing changed back into what you know as Raven Darkholme in an attempt to hide herself. It was too late, though, since everyone saw her and all started screaming and crying."

"So that's it? You all make this assumption based off the accounts of one scenario?"

"But that's not it. That's just one story. Everyday people say during gym class she always changes in the bathroom stall, and her heels just turn to this dark blue-looking color for a second and change back. Even once someone said they opened the stall door that she forgot to lock and saw her looking like a demon with yellow eyes."

I could have died right then and there and have felt fulfilled in life. Not because I was relieved to know or anything, but because it was probably the greatest story I had ever heard someone truly believe deep down in their soul. Especially someone like Stacy: blissfully uncaring about anything but prom and shopping and boys, but also woefully convinced about demons living among the school students. I didn't want to just laugh, though, since she was basically being brave for telling me this, so I looked over at the other dudes at the table.

"What are your thoughts, guys?" After all, Stacy did in fact steal all the attention from the table.

One of the guys responded, "I've seen girls run screaming for help out of the locker rooms, kid, so she's not that off-basis."

The other guys nodded in agreement. That was mind-blowing. Holy shit. Everyone in the school thought Raven was a demon or something. This was the most amazing thing I've ever heard. I took a deep breath.

"Well—thanks Stacy. I know it's not easy to tell me something like that. I think I have to go now. See you guys around."

Raven saw me and gleefully approached me after school that day. As she came running up, books bouncing under her arms and mouth grinning, I took into account the story from earlier. If she was a real-life demon, what was her motivation? Right now, she seems to be coming up to talk with me as friends like usual, but why would a demon do that? Could she have a plot to make me commit horrible crimes in the name of Satan? After all, she did initiate my interest in the first place by coming up to our lunch table. And she's wonderfully attractive, too. All things the devil uses to fool other men with. Then she forced into my psyche the everlasting urge to find her after that and get to know her, obviously in order to hold me by my soul to do the devil's bidding. Have I done anything horrible since I met her? Shit, yeah I have! I upset three girls in a second and injured another guy who was only protecting his girl. It all seemed to add up.

But wait, no it didn't. For one thing I've been fighting people all the time before that incident anyway. Also, if she really did have a demonic influence over my actions, why was she incapable of preventing me from reconciling with Josh and Stacy? Does she just suck at her job? Is that even what demons do? I thought demons were just like tainted spirits, or something. She could be a regular girl whose body was possessed by a demon. That was doubtful, though. It would have done way worse things by now. In _The Exorcist_, the girl Regan starts making shit float around while Raven is just sort of normal. But wait. Weren't demons just names they gave to crazy people in the dark ages? They would usually burn them at the stake, and later lock them up in grimy dungeons. We've found out today that the demons of the past were really just helpless people with mental disorders. Was Raven a demon, a helpless mental patient, or something else?

"Hi Blake. How was the Chemistry test? Didja do good?"

"Raven, are you a demon?"

Smooth move, ex-lax. Wow, I can't believe I let that slip.

"'Scuse me?"

"Sorry, just forget about it."

"Okay then."

Damn her, she knows reverse psychology! The obvious tactics of a _demon_!

"A _demon_, Raven. Are you a demon?"

"Uhhhh, where did you get that idea."

"I don't know. Let me think. Stacy says you scared the living shit out of a bunch of girls once, and how other people have seen you looking like a monster or something, and your ankles turn blue when you dress out for gym class, and all of her friends are dead fucking serious and believe her one hundred percent, and all of my friends keep telling me to stay away from you but can't tell me why because it's too weird, and even you won't tell me why everyone seems to hate you—"

"Woah, calm down Blake. You're not telling me you believe them, are you?"

"I don't know. It's kind of hard not to believe the mutual accounts of _so many people_!"

"So does this mean we're not friends anymore?"

That killed me. Seriously. I felt like right where I stood she struck me with lightning or something. Boy had I been acting stupid. How the fuck could I possibly believe something so fucking _retarded_!? Suddenly I noticed I had my hands on her shoulders and was breathing real heavy. I laughed at the sky and let her go.

"You're not a demon?"

"No, Blake. I'm not."

"Alright, but I got my eye on you." Then I did one those _got my eye on you_ hand gesture things, and she giggled.

"Christ, Blake, you really scared me for a second. You were all sweating and everything."

"But really, Raven, what _did_ those other girls see in the locker room?"

"Maybe I'll tell you about it later, but not right now."

"It's just not a demon?"

"No."

"Alright, I'm done now."

"Thank you."

She quickly diverted the conversation back to that chemistry test I lied about. Still, though, how could I have possibly let those morons trick me? Demons aren't real! They never were and never will be real. Fuck them and they're stupid ghost stories.


	4. Chapter 4

Strange things began to happen soon. Strange, annoying things. Raven and I, almost best friends at this point, went almost everywhere together now, and other people didn't seem to like this for some reason. Lots of kids sneered or broke eye-contact with us in the hallways, but that wasn't the worst of it. Once a kid called me a devil worshipper right in front of Ms. Devil herself. I made him a blood faucet.

"We should leave." Raven said then.

"Yeah, good idea."

The little idiot just clutched his face for attention, though, and didn't actually fight back like Josh or anything.

"You know, as flattered as I am that you respect me like that, you really should calm down and not get so worked up over one ignorant kid." She told me.

"It's not just one kid, though. It's everyone. Everywhere we go there's assholes waiting to throw their shit at us just because we're friends."

"Are you tired of them making fun of _us_?"

I quickly caught my mistake before it went too far.

"Yeah actually. I don't know how you can possibly stand it for so long. I feel so bad for you."

She felt the back of her neck. "Thanks Blake." She said softly. "I'm glad at least two people in this school are nice to me."

"Two?"

"You and Ms. Weathers. Before you moved here I almost always ate lunch with her because she would talk to me and was nice to me."

"Am I taking you away from that?"

"Not really. I still see her sometimes when you're busy."

"I don't _need_ to eat in the cafeteria. Why don't we both go in there for lunch? I think she's cool."

So we did. Ms. Weathers seemed happy to see me for some reason, despite how terrible I am in her class. Actually my grade's only a C, but still...

"Hi Blake, hi Raven. How are you guys today?"

"Fine." Raven responded.

"My hand hurts."

Ms. Weathers looked at me funny. "And why's that, Blake?

"Ummmmm—"

"Did you get into another fight?"

I forgot to mention that since the Josh fight, I had gotten into a duel with a few more kids as well. All of their asses I kicked wonderfully, though, and all of them deserved to be kicked. They were just some more guys throwing insulting comments about Raven. What got me was that they all happened outside of school. How did Ms. Weathers, of all people, know?

"Nooooooo."

"Yes." Raven interrupted.

"It wasn't like that. His nose actually punched _me_ in the fist."

Ms. Weathers gasped at this. "That temper of yours is going to get you in a lot of trouble someday."

"How is it you know so much about me fighting and having a bad temper all of a sudden?"

At first it seemed that I got her, but she saved herself.

"Because I see more and more students every day with black eyes and broken noses."

We all laughed at this. It still upset me that I was making a reputation around the school that I _beat people_, though.

"So, Raven. Read anything good, lately?" She asked.

"Actually, I started picking up _Time Magazine_."

Conveniently enough, I had started reading a lot of _Time_, too, plus a wealth of other things. It wasn't just to impress her anymore, believe it or not. In Phoenix, when we were bored, we would just sit around and coo at women. Here things were just boring, period, and reading was all that was left. Hell, it made for a good conversation at least.

Despite my near constant violence against the endless onslaught of assholes, they never stopped. To me it was annoying, but to Raven? Something made me think it was eating her from the inside. Before me, most people left her alone, I guess. Now every time someone felt the need to comment she would urge me to leave with her. As the days and weeks passed, she gradually started to wear down. She just seemed more stressed out, and I felt so bad for her. What could I possibly do, though? Beat more people? Offer to assassinate everyone in the school?

"Would you like me to assassinate everyone in the school?" I asked once after another incident.

"Hmm, no thanks. I won't promise to visit you in prison."

"Oh, no need. I'll just politely explain to the police that those people were all being kind of rude, and they'll understand."

To be honest, I really was doing all that I could think of to help her. It's not like not being her friend anymore is an option, 'cause then she's just lonely again.

On a brighter note, my grades were rising. No shit, right? Having a friend whose grades are hella better than yours really makes you want to compete. So far there were only less C's, which is sort of better.

Gary and I still hung out. We mutually agreed not to talk about Raven after he saw me sock someone for doing the same thing again. He still attempted to make me spend less time with her, though, just in more subtle ways.

"Hey Blake, wanna see a movie with us this weekend?"

"I don't got no money, yo."

"Well—we'll pay for you."

He's got me there. After all, why reject a free movie with someone? Other than the fact that he asks me this _every week_!

Most times I say "No, I'm busy studying," or something hypocritical like that. I didn't hate him, don't get me wrong. It's just that Raven was sort of everything to me, even though we weren't actually dating. Not yet at least.

Instead of sitting my ass in a theatre with Gary and his friends on weekends, I prefered to sit around in Raven's room. Her window sort of became the official "Blake entrance," because her mom for some reason had a thing against me. Whenever going up to the front door, she would always tell me to fuck off, except more polite than that. Every time, too. It began to occur to me that Mrs. Darkholme didn't want me around. To hell with what she wants. I'm perfectly okay scaling the supports of her porch and crawling through the window if it means I can be in my best friend's damn room.

Get ready for this, because it will blow your mind. Raven's room has a lot of books. Weird, right? She had a relatively large bookshelf with plenty of classics and obscurities all throughout it. Also she had a pretty narly record collection, with the player in her room and everything.

She was a fan favorite of Elton John, _The Who_, and _Yes_ to namedrop a few bands. We often put something on and sat around playing the sentence game. That's where you and at least one other person take turns adding a word to form a completely random and silly sentence. Yeah, we were pretty bored. As innocent as this sounds, though, Mrs. Darkholme came home one day and saw me in her room. She then went into conniptions.

"What is he doing here!? Did I say you could have friends over? You're not done studying, are you?"

God! That Studying shit was starting to get really old. I was starting to think this bitch was using the homework excuse to keep her isolated from the rest of the world. Why any parent would want that, I don't know.

After that we both agreed it would be best if I entered and exited through the window, and that whenever her mom came home from work it was time for me to scurry out the window at the right time so she wouldn't see that I was there. Sometimes I timed it perfectly and climbed down right before she came in the room, and other times I had to pull myself onto the roof in order not to be seen from the outside. With all that backstory, now, let me get into some serious business.

One of the most bittersweet days I've ever had was one day in December. One very boring, cold day in December on a Saturday. Homework ceased a bit for finals coming up soon, and it was snowing like a bitch outside. Seriously, like, you couldn't go anywhere without walking into giant piles of sky cum. At first I thought it was awesome, since Phoenix _never_ got snow. Raven was a bit pissy about it at first, though, until I forced her to play in it with me. Soon, though, both of us were equally as pissy about shoveling snow from our driveways and dressing in bomb-deactivating gear before going outside all the time.

Because of this, we found ourselves just lying side-by-side across her bed listening to some of her records. At some point, Baba O'Riley came on. To this day I'm permanently conditioned to shout, "Yes, I love this song!" Whenever it comes on. It's so good.

It stole me for a moment lying there and my feet started swaying side to side. Then my whole body was rocking to the beat. When the first piano chords struck, I couldn't help but get up and start shaking my hips like a dumbass.

"What are you doing?"

"I can't help it. The song is making me."

When the singing starting I turned around and started mouthing the lyrics at Raven with my finger pointed. She giggled at how stupid I looked. Then I grabbed her wrists and hoisted her on her feet.

"C'mon, let's dance."

"I can't dance, Blake."

"Exactly."

It was stupid fun. Both of us were bouncing around, bobbing our heads, flailing our arms, spinning around, and just plain spazzing out. The strings section at the end started playing something which sounded like thirty-second notes, and we jerked around trying to keep tempo, laughing at ourselves the whole time.

"Oh my god, I'm tired!" She said.

"Me too."

Somehow or another when the song ended, I seemed to have accidentally pinned her against the wall by her shoulders with my elbows, and we just stood there for a bit breathing into each other's faces. She smiled at me and kind of laughed under her breath, and me the same. Our eyes connected, and something behind them seemed to have, also. We shared this intimate moment together for what felt like forever. I could have stood there forever too, probably, except for one thing. Her eyes shifted over and our gazing contest was shattered.

"Mom!"

My body ejected itself from the wall at that moment, and my stomach wrenched itself upon seeing Mrs. Darkholme standing in the doorway with her arms folded, and a frown which understated what came next. She stared at us with that death-piercing stare of hers. The silence was killing me, and after all there really wasn't any reason for this hyper-morbid reaction anyway.

"Hi Mrs. Darkholme. Are we stomping too loud for you? I forget sometimes we're upst—"

"Get out of my house."

Ooh! Next to _I want a divorce_, that's probably the most bloodcurdling thing a mom could ever say. Seriously, it wasn't like _Please leave_, or _What are you doing here again?_ _Get out of my house_! Those are the words you say to either a burglar or someone who's wrecking your shit. God damn, it stung. I ceased to see what the problem was, though.

"We weren't doing anything, if that's what y—"

"Get out of my house." A little louder this time.

What the hell was going on? I looked over at Raven to my left. She was still panting from earlier, but now wore a horrified expression on her face. Well? I guess there was no other choice. I picked up my coat off the bed, still scared shitless, and made for the—

"We _have_ a door!"

Right. Boy was that stupid. I was so used to hopping through the window that it was just involuntary now. The only problem is that now I had to walk around Mrs. Darkholme. She continued violently stabbing Raven with her gaze of fury all while I came uncomfortably close to her body filled with hell's wrath on my way out the bedroom door. I stopped at the top of the staircase, though, and looked back at Raven past her mother's shoulder. She had collected herself but tensed up for the inevitable verbal beating awaiting her.

"Keep going." Her mother said, without looking at me. I really blew it for her now. Slowly I made my way down the stairs, through the kitchen, and out the front door like she said. Despite being told to leave, I felt it was my job to at least listen in to what they were yelling about so I could apologize correctly later.

"Now go home, you."

Shit! That scared me. She followed me out to the street to make sure I wouldn't do exactly what I was going to do. I did as she said and started trudging down the street. About three houses down, I stopped and looked back. Jesus! She was still there, watching me leave for as long as possible!

I continued walking and made up my mind. I turned on the corner of the nearest intersection, which wasn't even where my house was. She didn't know that, though. Doubling back against the southern wall of the house on the corner, I peered around the side

Good. She was gone. I knew better than to race back down the sidewalk, though, so I checked around the other corner across everyone's backyards and she wasn't there either. Hopefully the neighbors wouldn't see me sprinting across their back lawns, 'cause I did, and stopped short of Raven's house at the end to check for her god-forsaken bitch of a mother looking out some window. She wasn't. I came around to the northern side of her house and shimmied as close to the street side as I could. The nice thing about these old houses is that they don't hold in sound very well. I could hear the entire argument from the outside. Hopefully I wasn't too late. I remember picking it up right around:

"...don't see what your problem is, he's just my friend!"

Perfect!

"Raven, we are not having this conversation. You're not going to be with that boy anymore."

"But mom—!"

"If I have to call his parents and have them control that brat, then I will, or else I'm going to have him arrested for breaking and entering!"

"Yeah? Not if I tell the police I _let him_!"

"I'll make sure you have no more friends, Raven."

"But Blake _is_ my only friend!"

"Then good. He won't ever see you again!"

What the fuck was going on!? I get if she doesn't want Raven being with _me_ anymore, 'cause it kind of looked like I was going to have sex with her for a second (Which I wasn't), but _all friends_? Why would any parent in the world want their kid to be lonely and depressed all the time? A new noise came out through the walls. A noise that sounded sort of like—Weeping? Yeah! Raven was crying now. It had to be, 'cause her mom finally softened her voice then.

"Listen to me, Raven. If things were different, I'd let you have all the friends you wanted. If there wasn't this situation with you, you could be free and normal like everyone else."

"But I still can."

"But for how long, darling? How long until someone sees you or you lose control one day?"

"I won't."

"I know you, Raven. You come home every day and change back because you can't handle hiding all the time. The more time you spend with other kids the more likely they'll see your true form."

Woah! She was talking about this "demon" ordeal. Clearly she wasn't really a demon, I've pieced that together, but what was that about changing back?

"I bet he won't even care." Raven choked.

"Won't care about how you look, like your father?"

She then let out a pitiful moan of despair.

"Your father left me when I lost my good looks from age. He cheated on me with a younger girl."

Raven was bawling horribly now.

"They're all the same. They just want your body, but once you don't have curves anymore they shed you like used clothing! You can't be with this boy anymore because I know them. He'll toss you away as soon as he sees what you really look like, just like your father did to me!"

"That's not true!" Raven cried. It almost made me cry just listening to it. "Blake would never do that, because he's my best friend."

"I don't want you to go through what I did. Just trust me, dear!"

My whole world could have exploded hearing that. Would Raven really listen to her? And what's this about her father leaving? That was serious business. You probably know better than I, professor, seeing how you're much older than me, but back then divorced parents really meant deep shit. Other parents would warn us against going near children of divorced parents, as if they're unstable murderers or something. I'm not proud of this, but I kind of agreed with them at the time. I agreed until finding out long after really making friends with Raven that her parents were divorced. Afterwards I actually sort of reconsidered my thinking about the subject of kids with separated families.

She continued crying, probably while lying in bed, and her mother left the room. While I continued thinking about the situation, it occurred to me that maybe Raven wanted some alone time. I got a little more convincing just then, though, to really take off.

"How long were you sitting there?"

Her mom came up from around the house, and once again me and my sick stomach took off around the house and down the street.

Boy what a rotten day. It wasn't over yet, though. At about two in the morning it was raining really hard outside, beating the earth into submission, and I couldn't sleep. Not because of the rain, though. The conversation with Raven and her mom kept running through my mind, over and over again nonstop. What did she mean by Raven's true form? The girls at school wouldn't shut the hell up about her looking like a demon-monster in the stall and shit. Is that what that is? From what I could piece together, Raven must really look scary or something, but for some reason has the ability to look like the normal girl that I know. What, was she born with a skin disease? Does she wear body paint to cover it up except on her ankles that those girls saw under the stall? I wonder what these girls think about black people.

These were the kind of things that ran through my mind and stopped me from sleeping. Sometime around two thirty, someone knocked on my window. Something told me she'd be here. But wait—It's raining like hell outside!

I through the covers away from my head and saw her depressed, nervous face getting hit by gallons of water looking in. She signaled for me to open the window. I got out of bed, and her head jerked slightly over like she was avoiding looking at me as I came over and slid open the glass pane.

"Jesus, girl. Come in and get out of the rain."

"It's fine. I actually kind of like it. But Blake, could you come with me right now? I want to show you something."

Oh shit. She was finally going to show me what it was that everyone seemed to have a problem with at school. That thing that her mother is aware of and is hidden from everyone at all times.

"Yeah, I'll be out in a second, but _get under something_. That's gotta be freezing!"

She kind of mosied away now, just waiting for my slow ass to get out there. Why wasn't she looking at me, though? Oh wait. I was still in my boxers. I got dressed as fast as I could without waking my folks up or anything, and just went out through the window again. Doors are overrated anyway.

"C'mon. Follow me."

She led me pretty damn far from any houses, right into the middle of some woods and under a tree which provided slightly more shelter from the rain. This must be really serious. She sighed.

"Blake, I'm going to show you that thing you keep asking me about now. I think it's time you see it."

I planted my feet in the ground and swore not to run or scream or react in any way which might give her the impression that I was scared of her.

"I'm ready, Raven. Trust me."

She looked at me long and hard, nervous about what she was doing. Finally it happened. She took in a deep breath to hold in her tears, and holy shit!

I had never seen anything like it. It seemed to break all laws of physics and science which we know of today. Somehow or another, she seemed to have absorbed light from thin-air into her own skin. The light shifted its way down her head, torso, legs, and some more across her arms. What was left in its wake was the most spectacular human figure I had ever laid eyes on.

The skin on her entire body was a smooth blue, and indescribable patterns of darker blue engravings—no, embossments wrapped around her breasts, hips, calves, face, and arms. They appeared to be like vines uniformly split across and all the way down. Her hair was like fiery orange, or cooling lava, slicked around the back of her head and frayed at neck level, leaving no bangs. She was bare-foot, and essentially nude if it wasn't for the patterns of skin covering her appropriately. She hid her face, though, and trembled waiting for some sort of sign of acceptance. I tenderly plucked her hands away from her face, marking what happened next as my single worst regret ever made.

Her eyes were yellow all over other than for pupils. It was a neon yellow which seemed to pierce my soul. Rather than in a harsh, expecting tone like her mom's, they reached my soul in an ethereal, warm sort of way. I had never seen anything like her in my life before. She was probably the only person in the entire world who looked like this. How, though? How could this have possibly happened? Despite my utter disbelief, It occurred to me that I sort of liked it. A lot actually. She was beautiful, in fact. More than any normal person I had ever seen. So beautiful, in fact, that upon seeing her eyes I flinched—

And she was gone. Threw my arms off her and covered her face again. She turned and sprinted into the darkness among the unforgiving rain and trees. Before I could grasp what I did she vanished into the distance.

I stood there a while in the rain contemplating what just happened. It slowly dawned on me. A girl, afflicted with ridicule and shame from everyone she knows, and forced to hide her true self by her helpless mom finally meets somebody. Somebody who listens to her, talks to her, spends time with her, likes her, and trusts her for the first time in her life. Emotionally stressed by her father's absence and the overbearing nature of her bringing up, and universally rejected by her peers, for the first time ever exposes herself to the only person she truly has in her life. Unstable and teetering on the fine line between the acceptance of one or the rejection of all for who she really is. I failed her. The smallest reflex tripped her over the side of total disacceptance from the world she was harshly brought into because of a biological mishap. She took the tiniest of my shudders of surprise as a sign of fear and loathing. As far as she's concerned she now has nobody in her life. As far as she knew I did her as much an injustice as her father, for leaving her and her mother for his own selfish purposes. All within slightly jerking my head from looking upon the biggest of cosmic misunderstandings. In my rage for my mistake, my burdened heart threw me to my knees and I screamed.


	5. Chapter 5

Boy did I ever fuck up. I continued to not sleep the rest of the night 'cause I know what the deal is, but Raven hates me now. How would I ever make up for this? _Sorry_. That's perfect. She'll be all over me with that poetry.

I guess the only thing I could do was tell her how hot she was to me last night. Would she believe me, though? Maybe it would be better not to be so crude.

That Sunday, after a sleepless night, I started a search for her. Her house was the last place on my list, because her mom would be on full alert now. Instead I just wandered through every road, and through every patch of forest to see if she happened to be pacing or something. Hang on, though. Why don't I check that cliff she goes to all the time? If there was anywhere else she'd go other than her own house, that would definitely be it. Well, a long hike up the hill to the top of the lakeside cliff proved not worth it. She wasn't.

Eventually, there didn't seem to be any reason for trudging over the whole town, so I went home and mulled the situation over. She'd have to be at school the next day.

Yes! There she is! Right in English class. Of course with that kind of mom she wouldn't skip school, even with me around. She wouldn't acknowledge my constant staring at her, though. She knew I was looking at her. Her writing got more vicious on the page and she basically stormed out past me after class.

She wasn't at lunch, either. Of course. I don't exist to her anymore. She had to be in Ms. Weather's room. I figured maybe I'd let her come to me and buy lunch eventually.

I waited a few days for her to show up, but she never did. Two days later I decided I'd better say something before she really did forget me. But how?

I went over to Ms. Weather's room for lunch that day and knocked. Normally she just yells to me to come in, but today there was a pause. The door opened barely a crack with her face on the other side.

"Oh, hello Blake. You need something?"

"Can I come in?" She confused me for a second. What did she think I wanted? Ms. Weathers turned her head around a second and paused. She looked back at me through the crack in the door and said.

"Not today, dear."

"Raven's in there, isn't she?"

"Uh, no. Goodbye now." She made to close the door, but I was too quick for her and shoved my fingers in to stop it. She closed the door over my fingers.

"Ooh, I'm sorry. Are you okay?"

"She told you not to let me in, didn't she?"

"If she wants to be alone, that's her choice."

"Let me talk to her."

"Please leave."

I shoved my face against the crack. "Raven, goddamn it! If I have to chase you down after school and tackle you just to get a word in, I'll do it! You can count on it!" And I yanked my fingers out and left.

_You_ could count on it too, professor. After school that day she started walking home, looking all around for me to get away. Too late. I came up from behind, and she quickened her pace into a mad hurry towards home with her face fixed ahead of her. I ran alongside her.

"There you are!"

"I'm not talking to you anymore, Blake."

"Oh, yes you are. Listen to me. Why did you take off like that the other night?"

"Why do you care?"

She spite me with every sentence using a bitter and angry tone.

"Why wouldn't I care?"

"Just go away. I want to be alone."

"You've been ignoring me for over four days, Raven. Why are you so mad at me?"

"Maybe because your a pig who's just trying to sex me!"

"Now where did you get that idea from?"

"Maybe it was the way you shoved me against the wall and practically raped me last Saturday."

"You know for a fact that that wasn't what that was, _at all_!" She was just avoiding the subject again.

"Raven, I know how you feel."

"No you don't!"

Right. Never say that. You never know how someone feels.

"Okay, you're right. I don't. But I know what you're upset about, and I'm telling you, it's not the way you think it is."

"Oh yeah? _What_ isn't?"

"You think I'm repulsed by who you really are."

"I'm done talking to you right now."

"Well let me tell you something."

"Stop it."

"I think you're fucking beautiful!"

That seemed to really do it for her. She finally looked at me.

"Shut up, Blake. You're lying!"

"What would I gain from lying, Raven?"

"You just want to make me feel better."

"I don't have to lie to do that. I really think you look good."

"No you don't."

"I do!"

"Stop it!"

"You're more than beautiful! You in your true form is more attractive than anything I'd ever seen!"

"Stop!"

"Why is this so hard to believe?"

She finally stopped race-walking home away from me.

"Well, I don't know. Maybe because everyone who sees my real self screams and runs away, and everyone thinks I'm ugly, and you were there looking at me horrified like I'm some sort of monster!"

"Because It's not every day that someone sees a person magically transform into a fucking blue girl with yellow eyes!"

That went over the line a bit. She knew it too, and swung around and slapped me hard across the cheek. That stung way longer than Josh's elbow. I'm dead serious!

"So that's all I am? A _fucking blue girl with yellow eyes_? Get away from me."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. I'm just trying to say I was surprised, is all."

"I'm through with you, Blake. Get out of my life!"

"But you _are_ a fucking blue girl with yellow eyes. Your a _sexy_ fucking blue girl with yellow eyes! You're the hottest fucking girl I've ever seen _because_ you're a fucking blue girl with yellow eyes!"

She started walking away from me again.

"You're true form is hot whether you like it or not!" I yelled after her. This wasn't over. I would continue to pester her every day until she would believe me.

So every day I would try talking to her after school and in hallways and shit. She avoided me almost every time. This wasn't really getting me anywhere. She never showed up to lunch anymore, only just let Ms. Weathers keep me out of the room. She would keep the door locked from the outside specifically so I wouldn't barge in.

One day I spotted some scotch tape on her desk, which gave me a pretty good idea. Later that day, during lunch again, I went up to the door and simply pushed it. It slid open without hesitation, and I walked into the room with Ms. Weathers sitting at her front desk and Raven—

I called out, "There you are—! No wait, go back—! _Awwwww._"

Miraculously she had _been_ transformed into her blue self in the classroom shut up with Ms. Weathers. Ms. Weathers knew the whole time? When I came in, though, Raven quickly morphed back to a bland white girl to hide herself. She looked livid to see me so cocky from outsmarting her. Either that or I could have exposed her to anyone who might be in the hallway. Ms. Weathers was shocked to see me too.

"Good heavens! How did you get in here!?"

"Raven, I'm not done with you."

Ms. Weather rushed past me to see—

"You put tape on the _door_?"

Earlier when no one was looking I stretched a couple pieces of scotch tape over the little hole in the frame so the latch bolt couldn't shut entirely. This way it could be held open and hopefully not gain her attention, too. Clearly it worked.

"Hang on a sec, you. Let me ask you something."

"Blake, this is insane!"

"I know you are. Listen. For the sake of example, let's just say you're right. Hypothetically, if I thought your true form was like an ugly monster or whatever, and all I cared about was boning you until then, then why the hell would I go through all the trouble of getting you to forgive me?"

"That's a good question. Why aren't you just leaving me alone?!"

"Because I don't understand why we can't just be friends!"

"'Cause you're a disgusting, insulting jerk!"

"How am I insulting?"

"Seriously? Because you keep hounding on me like I'm just some piece of meet!"

"How so? Because I'm trying to tell you that you're not an ugly monster but actually a good looking girl?"

"Yes!"

"I _would_ if you just believe me and stop being so angry!"

It was about then that Ms. Weathers finished picking the tape off the wall and joined in.

"She came in here to be alone, Blake, now leave or I'm calling security!"

"I'm not letting up until you stop being mad at me." I stormed out of the classroom then, frustrated over her stubborn insistence on self abuse. I started running out of things to say to her, though, despite the continual after-school chasings. If there was anything good that came out of the ordeal, it was that Raven for once got some positive attention from her peers. I guess it has something to do with the "scary demon chick" being chased like mad down the street for three blocks every day. Once even, a few guys stepped in between us to stop me.

"Dude, why are you running after some girl like that?"

"'Cause she won't fucking talk to me!"

"You should let up. You're kind of ridiculous doing that every day."

"Hey, since when did you care about demon girl, huh?"

"Well—" Looks like I got him there. I wasn't trying to help spread that rumor, but more mocking other people for actually thinking it. Technically it was true that she was supernatural, but as far as this guy knows, she's just an irritated junior girl being chased by some dufas.

I decided to fuck with her in more creative ways, now. I was inspired by noticing that the tape on Ms. Weather's desk was gone because of me. Once in passing period, I brought my own tape from home and carefully stuck a sign onto the back of her sweatshirt without her noticing me which read "Dayum!" and had an arrow pointing at her ass. I seriously think she just noticed a whole class period later when so many people were snickering as she passed them. I saw her rip off the paper, which also had the tiny words "Love, Blake" written in the corner. She crumpled it and threw it in my face.

I also started a side project of sneaking up to her window every night and taping a sign facing her with a short message. One read, "Yous gots fine hips," and I drew and colored in a blue curve across the paper. She didn't outwardly respond to these, since she just threw them away at home.

I also attempted passing notes to her in class, but the other kids didn't want to cooperate.

Things got really extreme later when I saw a guy open his locker only to have a bunch of sand dump out on him. Brilliant! I rushed to the store and picked up some stuff. Loads of stuff actually.

The next morning I went to school early and broke into her locker. She gave me the combination once to get something out for her, and I made a note of remembering it for situations just like this. It was hard stacking these particular things in her locker. She walked in from around the corner right when I was finished and leaving. She didn't take notice, though, until she opened it.

About three jumbo bags worth of wrapped sweet tarts dumped out onto her. She looked over at me and mouthed _Really!?_ Despite how annoying this must all sound, I could kind of see in her eye that deep down, she was flattered at my constant efforts to make her stop being mad at me. I just snickered and tip-toed away like a rascal.

One day, the idea struck me harder than Raven's hand that one time. Okay, not that hard, but pretty hard. I went over to the general store again except bought like five packets of printer paper, twenty sharpies, and a few rolls of tape. I had spent all night writing on them one Wednesday, and skipped school Thursday to go to her house while her mom was out.

With all the shit in a bag over my shoulder, I leapt up to the window sill and slid it open. Funny thing, Raven hadn't touched it since my last forced departure from her house. How do I know this? Because I opened it a crack to leave when her mom barked at me to use the front door, and it was still like that.

With little time to waist I got to work. It was really tedious work, but eventually I was done, and right when Raven got home from school, too. She walked in the front door and I dived out the window again.

This whole project made me tired, especially after spending a whole night on it initially. My efforts paid off finally on Friday, when I returned to school again. Actually, it was after school that it happened. I began trudging home, tired from the other night, and was startled to find my hand yanked to the side by someone.

"C'mon," Said Raven.

"Where are we going?"

"Shut up. Just follow me."

She took me all the way to the top of the lakeside cliff again, except this time barking at me to "hurry up" and "quit being lazy. C'mon." The whole thing was really exciting. I think I finally did it. We were practically running by the time we got to the top, and I was getting worried she was going to run me off the cliff.

Actually we stopped right at it, overlooking everything once again. Suddenly, though, she morphed into her regular, blue self with the yellow eyes and red hair again. I was so happy to see that again. She turned towards me, gasping for breath from the sprint.

"Alright, Blake. Fine! If you think I'm such hot shit, then kiss me!"

Was she being serious?

"You heard me! Right on the lips, let's go!"

Oh my god! This was my chance to finally get in my first kiss. No shit, right? This really was my first time. I never got the chance to make out with any other girl, and I was glad it was this one.

"What's the matter? Scared of blue lips? C'mon! If you really think I'm the most beautiful girl ever, then kiss me already!"

It occurred to me that I was stalling. Not out of fear, but shock. The butterflies wouldn't let up, but remembering what happened with a past mistake...

"I thought you'd never ask." I said. And then I kissed her. I made out with her, and once she finally believed me she made out with me, too. We were stuck in tight embrace and felt each other up while kissing atop the cliff overlooking the whole town. Adorable, right? It was probably the best moment of my life. She looked up at me ('cause I had her leaning back into my arm).

"You weren't lying, after all."

"No."

"You really like me like this?"

"Yes!"

"How?"

Remember my initial description of her on that rainy confrontation? Basically I just told her that again, and she ate it up.

"I can't believe—you really—?"

"Yes, Raven. I honest to god think that."

Her eyes were tearing up again, except this time with what looked like happiness. We kissed some more, and began making our way down the hill again, hand in hand. We were recounting the past week.

"You are an absolute maniac, you know that?" She told me.

"A maniac for _you_."

"Seriously though, you almost got me in trouble by taping all those signs in my room!"

The thing I had done to her room was taped sheets of printer paper covering every square inch of her walls, floor, and ceiling, which read, "You're beautiful, Raven! Love, Blake." Yep. I spent all night writing on every sheet in order to cover her room with.

"Really, how?"

"If my mom saw it, she would have freaked out. I had to tear them all off as fast as I could before she got home so she wouldn't know someone was in my room again!"

"What'd you do with them?"

"I couldn't get them to the trash in the kitchen without being caught, so I just shoved them all under my bed!"

"I still have like three hundred left. You want them?"

"No!"

We laughed some more at all my antics lately until we heard some kid freak out when seeing Raven's real form.

"Shit! Someone saw me again."

"Well, crap. What are we gonna do about all the assholes at school?"

"I don't know."

This was a serious ordeal. While important, though, it was kind of hard to think about right now. She didn't change back to hide herself again, which was fine. We hadn't left the woods anyway. I looked at her face again for a long time.

"I'm so glad you're talking to me again."

"We're doing more than just talking _now_."

"_Oh_ yeah."

We made our way back home, and she morphed back into her disguise before hitting the streets again. I watched her as she went back into her own house, thinking about how my successful efforts to win her over got me more than I had asked for.


	6. Chapter 6

For some weird reason, I had this feeling that Raven and I were dating now. No shit, right? I don't know. It may have been 'cause of the way we went almost everywhere now, inseparable, constantly holding hands or touching each other whenever possible. Yeah, I'd say we were probably into each other by now.

It was pretty damn good. I found myself cuddling with her almost any chance I could get. She often teased me about this.

"God, Blake. You're so needy. I thought it was supposed to be the other way around."

"You're like a giant teddy bear."

"Awwww, does someone miss having a teddy bear?" She cooed.

"You mean five? _Yes._"

"You had five teddy bears as a child?"

"Stuffed animals, actually. Only one of them was a bear."

"What happened to them?"

"Well, it's just not that cool around babes, you know?"

"I want to see them. You didn't throw them out, did you?"

"Of course not! That's like throwing people out. I just have them packed away somewhere."

"So it's okay to shove people in boxes and put them in the attic to starve to death, but it isn't to just place them in a garbage can?"

"What? You don't stuff people in _your_ attic?"

We laughed for a while. We weren't shy of letting people at school know we had a thing, now. It's just that this didn't have the reaction I had hoped for.

"Oh, wow. You two are dating now?" One guy said to us, once.

"Yeah, what's it to _you_?"

He just sighed and shook his head. Holy shit, that was annoying! Not only are so many of these people condescending, but they're also dead sure that I'm making a mistake. I know better than _them_, though!

"Raven, you need to help me with these dick-heads sometimes. I can't always be the one to put 'em down all the time."

She agreed to start giving people more shit with me, but it didn't last long.

"Blake, seriously. There's so many other girls out there—"

"Shut your fucking face!" Raven shouted at him.

I followed up with, "Go kill yourself, faggot!"

You may have noticed by now that I'm not too socially sensitive or anything. Raven sure was when I first met her. Lately, though, she seemed to have been taking some lessons from me. Hearing her curse people out is hysterical, though. Their faces usually grow bright red and they scamper off like pussies. It might just be 'cause they're scared of her from all the rumors and shit. She felt bad about it, though.

"That was so mean. I wish I didn't do that."

"What are you talking about? He totally deserved it."

"I don't know. I just don't like it." What a sweety, huh?

Even though Raven totally trusted me around her in her normal form, that didn't mean I saw it all the time after that. She still couldn't walk around in broad daylight when there were people around. Only on weekends could I see her relax a bit.

We were once just trumping around like usual and sat up in a random tree branch. I had just remembered at that point in time something I saw previously. Why hadn't I brought it up before?

"Hey Raven, I just remembered. How does Ms. Weathers know about your special thing? I saw you in there and she looked fine with you looking defaulted."

She sighed from thought. "Ms. Weathers and I go back a few years. When I was first a freshmen I was really lonely. She teaches all grades you know."

"Right."

"I learned from previous experience that trying to convince people to be friends with you when you were the subject of ridicule was hell, and just made more kids scared. Since then I aspired to staying away from everybody at all times just so they would leave me alone. Because of this, freshmen year went by well. In sophomore year, the loneliness started to hurt a little bit. By the beginning of junior year I couldn't stand it any longer. All three years, though, the only person in my life was her. She somehow noticed in my writing that I was so depressed in freshmen year that she pulled me over one day after class and just asked if I could eat lunch with her in her room. I did, and she had me eat with her every day, since I was usually alone anyway. It was nice to have someone to talk to. She eventually caught on that I wasn't normal, kind of like you did, but I showed her almost instantly. She was kind of scared, too, but got her wits together and I just explained it like it was. Ever since then, she allowed me to change back to standard form in her room, which was really why she locked the door all the time."

"Why do you need to change back so much?"

"It's 'cause even though I've pretty much mastered holding disguises all day long, there's still a kind of internal urge to change back. I just have to withstand it as long as I can until I can get some privacy."

It all made sense, now. "Is that why you had to change in those stalls which girls said they saw you in?"

"Yep."

"You should have, like, stood on the toilet seat and crouched down so they wouldn't see your ankles."

"I do now."

This was getting really sad, now. It's not even her fault. It's like a really crappy condition that makes normal life around people like holding her breath underwater. She was feeling a bit frustrated just talking about it, too, because she started rambling.

"Ms. Weathers was like a best friend to me. Even though she was my teacher, I told her everything. I told her about boys I thought looked cute (keyword being _looked_)." I laughed at this. "I told her about my stressful mom, and when I was tired of school, and what I was reading, and just everything."

That's why I think Ms. Weathers was cool. Anyone who's a friend of Raven is a friend of mine, even if she docks points over using passive-voice. I could never be too mad at her, just because she was open-minded and cared about her students.

One thing Raven told me was that she could morph into other people, too. Yeah, that's pretty important, isn't it? How could I forget to mention _that_? We were sitting at the top of the lakeside cliff again when she told me.

"No shit. Really? Let me see!"

She morphed into the skinny blonde, Stacy, in her two-piece swimsuit and said in her voice, "Ex-_cuse me?_"

"That's amazing!" If I hadn't known better, I would have thought it _was_ Stacy. "How do you do that!?"

She turned into Ms. Weathers and again was spot on. "Now, class. Let's discuss the science of turning into other people."

"Dude, go back to normal now. This is seriously getting creepy."

She turned into Josh, now. "Why should I, kid? Want me to beat your face in again?"

"Okay, how do I know you _aren't_ some demon weird thing?"

She changed back to blue-Raven. "You're kidding, right?"

I breathed a sigh of relief. "Jesus, I almost shit my pants. Seriously, though. _What are you_?"

"You're almost starting to sound like them."

"Sorry, let me rephrase that." I kind of jumped onto her lying there on the grass and she went "Oof."

"So what are _you_?" I asked in a jokingly seductive, deep voice.

From what she knew, she was just born blue. She wasn't able to actually morph into anything until she was about old enough to speak fluently. Even then, though, she wasn't very good at it. It wasn't until later when she convinced her mother to let her go to public school as long as she hid herself as this standard white girl disguise look she came up with. Before that, her mom homeschooled her. Impressively enough, she designed the disguise to look almost exactly like herself but basically with a different color palette. Also the hair is more flowing.

"So, question—how do you piss and shit in your normal form?"

She laughed pretty hard when I brought it up.

"What, you think I'm going to show you my true _true_ self?"

"What's that?"

"If I literally just revert to default entirely, I _would_ have genitals. I'm not going to get naked for you though."

"So what? You made up this weird floral design to cover your junk?" I poked at the course embossment over her skin.

"Not exactly. When I'm really naked, I still have some. It just misses my parts. I morph as close to default for you without being completely nude."

"Oh, don't worry about that! I don't mind."

"Screw you! I'm not showing you my genitals."

"Yes please."

"No."

I was only kidding, anyway. Also she hated swimming, because it was harder to concentrate herself to stay morphed in any way. I asked this while we walked back around the lake.

"So if you went into that lake, looking like my mom or something, then you would just revert back to normal?"

"Yeah, why—?Wait—Don't even think about it!"

I grabbed her and tried forcing her into the lake with me, but she fought against it.

"Seriously, stop!" She laughed. "You're such a perv, trying to see me naked. Stop!"

I almost had it, too, until my own foot plunged into the water.

"God that's cold! Never mind."

"Thank you!"

"That would really just be mean if I threw you into a bunch of freezing cold water."

"No shit, right?" She said this, and I smiled knowing she caught onto my terrible vocabulary.

Sometimes when she morphed back from a person we know, her voice wasn't done reverting and sounded kind of echoey. Sort of like how they make monsters in movies where they overlay a deep voice with a normal voice, and they blend to make this scary thing. There again with the monster thing, huh? Hers wasn't scary, though. It was just sort of weird.

Sometimes I made Raven come over to my house. She didn't dare go normal there, though. I'm not sure how my parents would react. Hell, I'm not even sure how I should react. Either way, though, my parents were rather nice to her. More so than her own mom.

"You know—is it Raven?" My dad asked once.

"Yeah."

"You and your family are welcome to come over for dinner some night if you want."

"Thanks, but, they work long days. Whenever they have time off, they prefer to spend it relaxing at home."

"Ahh, I see."

She handled that pretty well. I've had a hard time myself lately accepting that Raven's parents were divorced and she had the magical ability to shapeshift into whoever she wanted for some reason. I'm young, though, and can accept weird shit much easier than old people. If my parents knew, shit would probably hit the fan.

Raven came for dinner alone one time. I think she laughed to find out how similarly crude my mom and I were. I don't know. I just figured most kids talk like their parents. She made a good impression, though, and that made Mom and Dad happy with me that I found a nice girlfriend. She let out a little bit about me, but not so much as to get me in serious trouble or anything. It was only enough for them to sort of look at me and go, "_Blaaaaake_. Really?" She told them about how she was mad at me for something and I filled her locker with the sweet-tarts. They asked what she was mad about, and she somehow got away with just, "It's kind of personal." That's how great Raven is. My parents practically loved her like their own. Quite the opposite from her side, I might add.

We decided to fuck with her mom's brain once as an experiment. Mrs. Darkholme's biggest problem was that she thought I would reject Raven when seeing her regular form. She came in the room one day to find us both in there. Raven was defaulted (I'll just say that to mean "In her normal state" from now on.) and sitting in her desk chair. I was holding a packet and reading her terms for our next test to try and remember. What could possibly go wrong?

"What is this?" Gasped Mrs. Darkholme.

Raven turned around in her chair. "Oh, hi mom. We're just studying for our math quiz tomorrow."

"Hi Mrs. Darkholme." I said. "Arccosine—"

"The angle given by the ratio between a right triangle's adjacent side and hypotenuse."

"Correct."

Mrs. Darkholme was flustered beyond belief. "What is he doing back here!?" She sounded exasperated.

"Oh, Blake? He's my boyfriend now!" She pinched my knee affectionately right in front of her mom, who could have exploded on the spot. After looking at us for almost another minute, she finally shut the door behind her. After about another minute we couldn't hold it in any longer and burst out laughing.

"Did you see her face!? That was the best thing!" I said.

"I can't believe that worked!"

"I'm betting she's feeling pretty bad, _now_!"

"I thought she was gonna _kill_ me for letting you back in here."

There was kind of a silence in the house.

"You don't think she's actually calling the police, do you?" I worried.

"Why? To arrest you for studying with me?"

Ever since that moment, I don't think her mom really bugged us anymore. Not even with the homework thing. It looks as if that really was just an excuse to isolate Raven from the world. Thinking back on that argument I overheard, though, I guess she's sort of justified in keeping me away. Seriously, I mean it! That was actually really heart-breaking hearing about her father who left and all. I'm just happy to be able to straighten out with her that not _all_ men are complete douches, and that Raven had a chance with friendship after all.

One night I made to leave out the front door (Weird, right? I won access to that now.) but was stopped by Mrs. Darkholme. Things weren't as peaceful as I suspected after all.

"Hang on one second. I want to talk to you."

"Sure. What about?"

She looked pretty grave again. After thinking over responses she finally came up with:

"What are you trying to prove?"

God fucking damn it, I hate this bitch so much. I hope she dies in the most painful and embarrassing way possible. Fuck her to hell! Seriously, when would she just fucking let up already!? I was so tired of this. Let her feel my wrath.

"Well, in physics I'm trying to prove with evidence that the period length of the swing of a pendulum is independent of the weight suspended from i—"

"Boy, quit acting smart with me. You know what I'm talking about."

"Actually, no I f—don't." Maybe I shouldn't be that angry. "I'm not trying to prove anything."

"Don't be so righteous. I know you overheard that argument I had with her."

"Yeah, so?"

"I think when you heard me tell her you'd dump her on seeing what she really looks like, you set out to try and prove me wrong because you're angry at me for throwing you out."

"Oh, so you think it's about you!?"

"Yes, actually. You _are_ a loud city-child who thinks too highly of himself, so it doesn't seem that out of character."

"Okay, well, you know what? You're half-right."

She chuckled as if to say "I knew it" but quickly reverted. "Only half?"

"Yeah. I _am_ trying to prove you wrong. I _am_ trying to prove that I think Raven looks great, and overhearing that conversation _did_ help me. Here's the deal, though. I'm not lying. I really _do_ like her kinky blue form. I think it looks wonderful. And the only reason I have any interest in proving you wrong is so I don't have to leap out the window whenever you come _home_!" That shocked her. I had gotten sporadically pissed, and it was wonderful to see her meet her match. "Do you honestly think that I clobber the hell out of every jackass who insults Raven, spend time with her every day, and skipped school and spent almost thirty bucks on stupid shit trying to convince her to talk to me again all because I want to prove you _wrong_? Let me tell you something, if you really loved your daughter, you would just leave us alone and let her be happy for once."

"Happy, you mean, until she gets pregnant and you leave her?"

"What is with this paranoia you have? Did every human being on the planet work together to kill your dog or something?"

"Don't act like I didn't see you two getting all touchy-feely against the wall."

This was starting to get awkward. "You weren't there earlier, so you don't even know. It was just a moment, alright?"

"Yes. Quite a _long_ moment, wasn't it?"

Ew! Did she really mean what I thought she said? She noticed my horrified gaze, I guess, and _continued_ of all things.

"I'll bet anything now that you know what she truly looks like you're thinking twice about getting your kinks with her. Well?"

I haven't truly thought about it, actually. It's probably because I don't really know whether she's still considered human or not, but also because it's difficult to imagine her taking her clothes off. I don't think I need to elaborate on why that is, or anything. Still, though. Mrs. Darkholme looked at me expectantly for an answer. Seriously? She actually wanted me to tell her whether I'd pound her daughter or not? What the hell was wrong with this woman? What could I say? _Yes_ is the wrong answer for obvious reasons, but _no_ would suggest that I think she's ugly and I'm not really serious about our relationship. It then occurred to me that girls ask these kinds of questions all the time, and I had once luckily developed a response to one of those in case a situation came up _just like this_.

"You know there isn't a correct answer to that, right?"

She looked at me long and hard, then. I think she was trying to find fault in that response, but clearly it just wasn't there. Ha! I told that bitch. Finally she subsided.

"It's getting late."

I took the opportunity without any grace whatsoever. "Yep, it sure is, Goodbye, I'm outta here." And then I left. _God_ that was weird. That only made me feel more sorry for Raven that she had to live with that nightmare.

I haven't really mentioned anything going on at school for a while, so here's something. Prom posters started shooting up everywhere. That's right. The end of the year was a-dawning and my grades weren't even that bad. I just sort of ignored it for a while, but did notice Raven stopped by the poster occasionally to read it. For some reason I didn't clue in just yet. What made me get on it was when a sophomore girl from Gary's group of friends asked me to go to prom with her.

"Oh, uh, sorry Jessica. I've already asked Raven to go with me."

That was a huge buttfucking lie, though. I hadn't asked her shit. What else would I say? _Well, that's kind of awkward 'cause I have a girlfriend, you know?_ Her face sunk.

"Oh, okay. See you around, then." I felt kind of bad for her. She was much smaller than me, and I didn't even have a thing against her. One thing's for sure: that lie I told had better not last.

Later that day I was walking home with Raven and just told her:

"So today I got asked to prom…"

She looked at me suspiciously.

"So what did you say?"

"Well, I told her that I had already asked you to go with me. Only problem is, I haven't yet. Wanna go to prom with me?"

The mood displayed by her expression recovered from a nosedive and soared up again. "Of course I do! I was worried you'd never ask!"

"Well, _you_ could of."

"Nuh uh. That isn't my job. You're the man in this relationship, meaning _you_ have to ask _me_."

"That's a bunch of crap."

Weeks before prom, though, we still faced the problem of ignorant morons. Yep. I'm bringing that up again. I couldn't help but feel that something was missing from my life.

"You know what I haven't done in a while?"

"What's that?" She inquired.

"I haven't played my favorite game."

"What game?"

"It's called _fuck with people_."

"Oh, yeah? When's the last time you played _that_ game?"

"With your mom, remember? And before that with you and all those gags I pulled."

"How about the time before that?"

"Well, I forced Josh and Stacy to be friends with me. It was really uncomfortable at first, and I love making people feel awkward."

"So who do you have in mind to do that with now?"

I thought about it for a moment. Usually when I fuck with people it's because I have something in mind to tell them (Ahem, _Mrs. Darkholme_). Who else was there left to set things straight with? Then it occurred to me:

"Follow me, huh? I got an idea."

I told her on the way to the cafeteria that day and spotted Gary sitting with Suzanne, Brett, some other guy Eric, and his girlfriend Hannah. Basically just the group of people I hung out with occasionally. Only this time I brought their worst nightmare. Raven and I sat on either side of Gary, he looked over at me.

"Oh, hi Blake, and—"

He saw Raven sitting there.

"I'm Raven, who are you?"

"Uh-uh-G-G-Gary." He turned to me and whispered, "Blake, what have I told you about h—"

"Shut your face, Gary. That's my girlfriend you're talking about."

He looked back over at her, and she just smiled slyly. I pinched her hand, and for a brief moment the spots I had the tips of my fingers over turned blue and went back. Gary saw it obviously. She's so good at this game.

"Uh—okaaaaay?"

Everyone else at the table were really shifty and avoided eye contact.

"We should go see a movie this weekend."

"Yeah, sure. Like what?"

Raven butted in, "What's out right now?"

"I figured we'd just choose a poster at random or something."

Gary was really nervous, now. I loved this. Constantly he would ask me to some movie to get me away from Raven, and now I agreed but made known she was coming with us. He wasn't at all excited for that. I forced more conversation out of him, though, and Raven said something whenever she could. Slowly he was transitioning from "scared shitless" Gary to just "confused and contemplative" Gary. The fact that he was being forced to talk with someone who the school mutually agreed was some sort of supernatural monster really got him thinking. How did I know all this? I could tell by the way his face changed over time and how he actually started saying _words_ to Raven. They were really nervous ones, starting out like "Oh yeah?" and "Okay." Eventually they made their way up to "What did you think of that Physics homework last night?" I was so happy.

We did go see a movie that weekend. No shit, right? He didn't even make that much a fuss about it. Raven and I just met him at his house on Saturday, hand-in-hand, and he sat in the doorway just looking her over a few times.

"Something wrong?" She asked.

"No, sorry. Let's go get Eric and everyone."

Over the next few days, the gang really started to accept her. Mind, she never defaulted or anything. She was in disguise at all times with them, and because of this I think they started forgetting about the weird rumors going around about her. She openly commented about how cute Eric and Hannah looked together, and they returned the comment about us.

"You really think so?" She asked.

"Well, yeah. I mean, you guys are always like holding and kissing in the hallways and stuff," Hannah smiled.

I broke in, "She's just really needy, you know. 'Can't get enough of me."

"Hey, shut up you hypocrite!"

"Seriously, like, she's always crawling all over me and crap."

"You're so dumb!"

I was only playing. To my everlasting joy, Raven was part of my group now. They didn't consider her any kind of threat at all. It was really nice being able to be with both Raven and my other friends without them giving me all kinds of stupid warnings.

Finally that prom thing came up. I had dressed all spiffy and everything with a bow tie and a lime green suit. Lime green suits are cool. I went over to her house and found her looking at some magazine, not dressed up or anything yet.

"Hey Blake. What should I go in—this?" She morphed into her disguise form with a red glittery dress without a back on it. Her hair was tied up with strands hanging down at the sides. I forgot she could just morph into whatever clothes she wanted. Before she showed me the other option, I cut in, "Yes. That looks awesome. Keep that."

"But I haven't shown you the other look yet."

I sat along the bed with my arms around her waist and kissed her cheek.

"Just go with it. It looks great."

She was looking at a fashion magazine for things to copy. "You'd better not take on something too expensive-looking. Other girls will get jealous."

"So what? They deserve to be jealous."

"Call it a hunch, but I don't think we'll want people to be noticing us too much tonight, huh?"

"Yeah, maybe you're right."

It was still early. We enjoyed ourselves watching her morph into annoying people we know wearing really stupid-looking prom outfits for about fifteen minutes. Once it was time to go, she went back into her own outfit and we left and headed down the street towards the school. Brett, Eric, and Hannah met up with us on our way there.

"Wow, you guys look great!" Hannah was looking us up and down.

"Hey thanks, you too. Where's Gary?" I asked.

Apparently he was feeling bad about being single and having no prom date, so he decided not to go.

"That's ridiculous, though. Brett's going!"

"Brett didn't get rejected asking someone out, though."

"Ooh, that really sucks."

All of us went through the doors of the gym and saw everyone dancing in there. Brett went and started goofing off with some other of his nerdy friends, and Eric and Hannah were just doing their own thing. Raven and I were there for like ten minutes until we noticed a few things.

"This music is terrible." She noted.

"We suck at dancing."

"I don't like the way that guy looked at me."

"It's too loud in here."

"We should leave."

"Good idea."

We took off pretty quick after that. Wow, was that a mistake! What were we thinking in trusting a _school sponsored_ event to be _fun_? Instead we just sort of sat down under a tree away from the school and talked for a while.

"Can I ask you something, Blake?"

"No." I was only being sarcastic. "Why would I _ever_ want to listen to a question?"

"Well too bad, I'm going to ask anyway."

She looked a little serious for a second, then. "How does it not bother you knowing I don't really look how I should all the time?"

I thought about it for a second, and hear this. It's probably the coolest thing I ever said, thanks to some new oratory skills from all the reading, lately.

"I don't know. But if _everyone_ looked the way they are, then there'd be a lot of ugly people."

Damn, that was good! She ate it up, too.

"Awwww. That's so sweet. Seriously, though, how are you okay with going out with someone who's like a weird shapeshifter?"

Alright, maybe it wasn't _that_ smooth. "Well, I just sort of have it in my mind that you're really good at disguising yourself. Really, though, you're just the same blue Raven underneath the appearance of someone else."

"You don't ever think I'm—inhuman or anything?"

"But you are inhuman. You're an alien."

I got really cuddly with her again. "Oh god," she laughed.

"You're a sexy space alien, who can turn into things and is awesome." We kissed under that tree, but were interrupted by reality letting us know that prom was over.

"Awww, look. Blake is making out with the creepy chick again!"

Josh's other friends, Spencer and Tommy, still had a thing against me from the fight. What was with these people? I made a move to go beat their asses again despite being outnumbered, but Raven grabbed my arm.

"Let me handle this," she whispered. She stood up, brushed some leaves off her, and holy shit! She turned into some middle-aged lady with graying hair and an apron and yelled at Tommy in this feeble voice, "Boys! What are you doing out so late? Thomas, I told you to be home before dark!"

Their faces turned pale and they trembled, backing away from us. "Mom!?" One of them shuddered. She then morphed into the football coach.

"Gentlemen!" She barked, with the coach's gruff voice. "Drop and give me twenty on the double!" I don't think the things she was saying in these people's likenesses were actually what they'd say, but that didn't matter. Just seeing her turn from one thing to the other was really all that mattered.

"What the fuck is going on!?"

"If you don't get out of here right now, then—" She then defaulted herself. "I'm going to possess your souls!"

Her voice was making that echoey sound again, adding to the creepiness. That was probably the cheesiest thing I ever heard her say seriously, but they still bolted, tripping over themselves on their way back home. I laughed so hard I ran out of air.

"Oh my god, Raven, you're the fucking best!"

"You think I scared them too much?" She asked satisfactorily.

"Dude, that was awesome. Just do _that_ from now on!"

"I don't think I should, though. I don't want parents to get involved."

"They were whiter than _printer_ paper!"

We both laughed about it for a while until she went back into her prom disguise.

"You want to go home, so I can get out of this dumb outfit?"

"Sure, let's go."

Obviously she already did, and could whenever she wanted, but there were still some folks walking home, and we didn't want them seeing her non disguise. For a first prom night, it was pretty good.


	7. Chapter 7

Despite it ending shortly for me at about two PM, this particular day I'm going to tell you about still holds up as feeling the longest in my life. Boy, was it shitty! Let me tell you all about it.

It started when I went over to the school and noticed Raven wasn't there. This was especially weird, 'cause she almost never missed a day at school. She must have been really sick from something. I wasn't the only one surprised by it, though. Gary came up to me.

"Hey Blake. Where's Raven?"

"I don't know."

"You look so empty without her next to you."

"I feel empty right now."

Wow. One day without her and it's like hell for me now. I couldn't imagine what my life would be like without her. In fact, I didn't know how I got around without her before.

I ate with him and the gang again at lunch when the shittiness started in the first place. One of Stacy's friends, Molly, came up to us looking at me. Her face was plastered so heavy with makeup today that she looked like a porcelain doll.

"Hey Blake, where's that bitch of a girlfriend you got?" Since the last time I overreacted to preppy girls insulting Raven, I'd calmed down a tad and gained more composure over my reaction. Besides, Raven wasn't there to be insulted, anyway.

"That's a good question, 'cause I don't know. Why?"

"Wait. She's not at school today?"

"No, she isn't."

"Is she at home, though?"

"I don't know. What's it to you anyway? Why do you care so much, now?"

"Hmm—Good."

She had this kind of satisfied smile on her face just then, and then it dawned on me. "What did you do?"

"What, me?

"You did something to her to make her miss school today. What did you do?" I was starting to get nervous now.

"I didn't say anything."

"Oh, so you _said_ something to her?"

I think she let that slip on purpose, though. She's trying to tell me she did something shitty just to piss me off. It was working well.

"Nothing, Blake. We just had a talk."

"Bitch, this is serious! She never misses school for anything. What the fuck did you say to her!?"

She saw how upset I was getting, but not in the way she had hoped for. "Why, what's wrong?"

"What did you say to her!?"

She got really scared then, especially since I had gotten up and had my hands on her shoulders. She panicked as I did this and just blurted out:

"I just saw her and she looked like a demon girl, and I-I-I told her to quit being such an ugly bitch and do the world a favor and just go kill herself!"

The people at my table gasped on hearing that. Whether it was the fact that she turned into a demon or that Molly said those things to her, I didn't know. I sort of just assumed it was for the former, which made me even more angry. I just looked at her for a second.

"You stupid cunt," came rolling out of my mouth. I had let go of her now, but she didn't leave. "I am so fucking done with this shit!"

"Hey, quiet down. You're getting other people's attention now."

I didn't care though. In fact, I spoke louder after hearing that. While continually looking at her, I just let it out.

"Why don't any of you shit-for-brains get it! Why do you all insist on harassing the _fuck_ out of her constantly, every day, nonstop! You don't even know _shit_ about her, yet you see her and throw your shit without even thinking _twice_!" I began addressing everyone as a whole but still looked at Molly while I did it. "This shit is getting really old! I'm tired of going around every day with my fucking _girlfriend_ and being scorned like we're fucking _witches_ or something! What do you even have to base yourself off of? Rumors of her looking kind of different sometimes!? Has it ever occurred to you motherfucking asswipes that instead of just being grade-A assholes, you could maybe look _into_ the situation and find out what's really going on? Here, let me enlighten all you motherfuckers in the cafeteria _right now_ what the big shit is about Raven!"

By now I had quit looking only at Molly now and was looking at everyone eating around me. It started getting quiet. They really were looking over here to see what was up. They must have been interested.

"Raven—" I started. What should I say, though? How could I get across the fact that she wasn't a demon, but was in fact supernatural in some way? Well, I guess I would try this. "Raven is a girl. She's a normal girl like half of _you_. She's a normal girl—who likes reading _books_—she likes listening to _music_—she _studies hard_—she's scared of _ladders_ because she once fell off one—" Some kids laughed at that. "...and she can magically shapeshift into anyone she wants." Yep. It was out now. People were looking around kind of nervous, but still intent on listening. "Yeah! I don't know why. She doesn't know why. Fucking _doctors_ don't know why! She was just _born_ like that. That _demon_ shit that you assholes won't shut your fucking faces about, that's just what she normally looks like. Because all of you make everything so hard for her, she goes around every day magically disguised as a normal-looking white girl! You know what, though? Fuck white chicks!" I heard some gasps at that. "I like my girls _blue_ now—with yellow eyes! Just like her. Now whether she's a _demon_, or a _harpy_, or a _witch_, or a fucking _dog turd_, I don't give a shit! That's my demon-harpy-witch-dog turd girlfriend, and any of you who have some sort of fucking problem with it can go _fuck_ yourselves. No—go _kill_ yourselves, because you're all worthless!" Something strange started happening then. They were all—cheering? Yeah. They were. What the fuck? "Fuck all of you. I hate you. You're the worst piece-o-shit asshole cunt-bag fuck-brained dick-heads I've ever seen—" They cheered louder and harder, and clapped. This was getting ridiculous. "I'm out of here. I can't stand this anymore. I hope you all go to hell!" They went wild now. I made my way to the door, cursing at them the whole time. "Move out of my way! Fuck off!" I was out. Boy did that get bad.

There was only one thing I could do, and that wasn't to continue staying at school. I made my way towards Raven's house, now, to try and make her feel better or something. I don't know. I didn't really get the details of her and Molly's confrontation. After walking all the way there, I went inside (since her mom was working) and went upstairs. Only one thing, though. She wasn't there. She wasn't in the kitchen either, or any bathroom (Don't worry, I just knocked.) She was no where in her house.

Oh god. Oh fuck, what was happening? She wasn't at school, nor at home, nor anywhere that I knew of, and she disappeared shortly after someone told her to go kill herself! Would she really?

I'll tell you right now, there were only two periods of time in my life which are totally blank to me. This was one of them. From what I could piece together, apparently I had sprinted. I sprinted far and fast. I went through forests, across a creek, hopped a fence, stumbled once in some dirt, scraped myself, and basically went berserk in an attempt to find Raven somewhere. I knew all this from the damage it left on my body. All I could think about was whether Raven would really kill herself or not. Could she really just take someone's snot comment too far, after being rejected by everyone else for so long in her life? Would she really take her own life without saying anything to me first? Oh, god. Where the fuck was she?

It felt like an eternity to me. I couldn't lose her. Not now. I never wanted her to ever leave me now. I couldn't live without her. She was the best thing that ever happened to me. She made moving to this town the best thing that ever happened to me. Please, god, don't let her be gone!

Where would she be, though? Where in this god-forsaken town would she ever—oh wait. I got it! If there was any place she would commit suicide from sadness it would be in that spot she goes. The one at the top of the hill she showed me.

Finally I regained consciousness after three eternities from just one sight. At the top of the lakeside cliff. There she was. She wasn't standing there, ready to jump. She wasn't slitting her wrists or getting ready to swallow pills, or shoot herself. She was only sitting there cross-legged, looking out like usual, defaulted I might add. Relief struck me like Josh's elbow.

I walked over to her and sat next to her. She looked over, surprised to see me.

"Oh hey Blake. Why aren't you in school? And—what happened to you?"

Oh yeah. I looked like I just ran from the mafia. My shirt and pants were wet and spotted with mud. The back of my shirt was ripped, there were scratches all over my face, I may have had a bruise on my forehead…

"Umm, I don't know. I think I tripped. But anyway, why weren't _you_ at school today?"

"I'm just thinking."

"About Molly?"

"You know about that?"

"She told me what she said to you."

"And what? You came looking for me?"

I looked at her for a second. "I just got scared."

"You didn't actually think I'd—" and she stopped. She was stunned for a second, because for the first time since age five or something, I cried.

"Oh god, Raven, I was so scared. I thought I lost you." I buried my face into hers. "You weren't at home, and you weren't at school, and someone had told you to go kill yourself, and I just thought you may have been so sick of everyone hating on you all the time that you went and actually k—"

"So you came running to find me?" She interrupted. I really tried as hard as I could not to keep crying, but I couldn't help it.

"Raven, I can't live without you. You're the best thing that's ever happened to me and I hate being anywhere without you!"

I think my sobbing finally got to her now, and she got strangely aggressive. "Alright, Blake!" She shouted. That actually startled me 'cause it was right in my face. That's not all, though. She grabbed me by my shoulders and _threw_ me against the the ground and got on top, with her face right close to mine.

"You listen to me right now, 'cause I've got something to say to you."

She wiped my eyes with her fingers. Yeah, it was a bit embarrassing. Just like earlier in the lunchroom. But wait, what did she want to say?

"The last time I thought about killing myself was the time when I first saw you at school, and your friends told me to go away. I admit it, you're kind of right. There was once a time when I _did _want to commit suicide because I was so tired of being such an outcast. Here's the deal, though. I haven't thought of doing it again ever since you sat down with me a few days later. Those three days that I was gone? I was in Ms. Weathers' being emotionally counseled against suicide. She was the one who convinced me of going into the cafeteria on Friday to see if I could maybe still make you my one friend, since you weren't spoiled by other rumors yet. Before I even knew where you were, though, _you_ came and sat down with _me_! Without _food_, even. You may not have known this at the time, but that's all it took to save me, Blake. Never again will I _ever_ think about killing myself, all because of you. You can count on that!"

Holy shit! That was the best thing I ever heard out of her.

"Boy, it sounds like that was really lucky, then. Huh?" Good. I stopped crying. I was feeling overjoyed now to hear her saying this. She made me feel all warm inside, but not just because she was sitting on me.

I still couldn't go back to school that day. It was too soon after that rant, and I wouldn't be able to stand the comments and shit. There were only two more periods left, anyway. Instead I just sat there with her for a while, looking out at the mass of kids swarming to get home. Oh, yeah.

"Hey, what _did_ happen between you and Molly?"

"Oh!" She got this sassy smile on her face. "Did you notice anything different about her?"

"Actually, yeah. She was wearing buckets of makeup today. Why?" Raven laughed on hearing that.

"Because she saw me wandering around once in the woods, and I was looking like myself, right? She saw me for a second and I hid myself really fast. Then she started running her mouth and trying to bully me."

"What does that have to do with the makeup, though?"

"Because I gave her a black eye!"

"Shut up!"

"I'm serious!"

"Damn, that's pretty hot!"

I really was influencing her. I could have gone around and punched everyone in the face with her at my side helping out, and been happy. We sat some more in silence. After a few minutes she started looking sad again.

"Blake?"

"Hmm?"

"If the circumstances were ever right, would you want to commit suicide with me?"

It was a morbidly romantic question, I guess. Although confusing—

"Those would have to be some pretty shitty circumstances, but yeah. Of course. If fire was raining from the sky or something."

She kind of giggled at this.

"And anyway, you just told me you weren't going to kill yourself—"

"I know I did, and I stand by that. I'm just saying that if some time in our life something horrible was going on which made both of us miserable beyond words, would you do it?"

"I'd probably look for solutions, first. But sure."

"Never mind. I can't explain it."

"Why, you want to jump off that cliff with me now?"

"No! Of course not."

"What, were you just waiting for me to get here so we could push each other off and die?"

"_No._" It was all a joke anyway. We were both just laughing at ourselves now.

"I don't wanna do that, I'm not miserable right now!" She assured.

"Well, me neither! I'm not even sure why you brought it up."

"I don't know either. I was just thinking."

We sat there for a little more and decided to head home. I picked up some lake water to wash some of the blood off me while we went around it. She changed back into her disguise-self right when we hit the road from the woods in front of her house, but wait—why all the kids?

Seriously, there were like twenty or so kids from the cafeteria earlier standing in front of Raven's house just waiting around for something. It occurred to me that that thing was us, though, as they saw us and rushed over. Gary and his gang were among them. Shit!

"Dude, Blake. That was _amazing_ earlier. You looked so pissed!" Said Gary.

Raven looked over at me humorously exasperated. "Damn it Blake, what did you do now?"

Eric piped in, "Raven, you should have _seen_ him earlier. He was like cursing everyone in the cafeteria out for being so mean to you all the time."

Some other kid shouted, "Raven, is it true you can just _turn_ into anything?"

"Let _me_ see! Go back to the way you were born or whatever!"

Raven blushed then. I don't think she could tell whether they were being mean or just curious. "You told them, Blake!?"

"Sorry, it just kind of slipped."

The crowd of kids in front of us continued egging her on. "Show us, Raven! We want to see!" I got an idea, then.

"Actually, yeah Raven. Show them. It's better we not hide the truth all the time anymore. If they see you now more clearly than ever, they might just accept you!"

She was really nervous. "I don't know, Blake."

"Trust me. I'll be right here if anything happens."

We looked into each other's eyes, and she finally nodded her head slightly.

"Alright, guys. Don't blink! Show them what you're made of, girl—literally."

She paused a moment, everyone staring intently ready to see some magic. They sure got it, alright. Raven slowly morphed back into the normal Raven that she always was. Blue, majestic, and soul-piercing. Some people jumped on sight, and others backed away. I held her hand though, and that seemed to calm them down knowing she wasn't going to possess anyone. I whispered to her, "Say something."

"Hi guys. So this is who I really am, I guess,," She said nervously.

"Oh my god." On kid came closer to her and looked at her whole body. He reached out a second, "C-can I—"

Raven moved her arm closer to him, and he felt it. He felt the course embossments with his fingertips. Other kids came closer, too. Pretty soon she was surrounded by the swarm of kids, all feeling her arms, face, back, and hair. I couldn't stand next to her anymore because they kind of got between us, but we held eye-contact and she gleefully absorbed the long overdue positive attention from her peers. They all spoke to her.

"Raven, how is this possible?"

"You look amazing."

Tears fell heavily down her face to hear all this. They finally understood. There wouldn't be anymore hiding herself from the world anymore. There wouldn't be anymore fearing her, or loathing her, or ignoring her, or talking about her behind her back. I felt so happy for her. She would finally have a normal li—

A gunshot cracked the serene silence and stopped our hearts. All the kids surrounding her jumped and scattered away from the source's target. When they all cleared out of the way, I could see, across the street, the image of someone holding a shotgun pointed in the air. Who was that? Oh shit! I knew who that was! Mrs. Darkholme then cocked the gun towards—_Raven_?

"No, stop!"

My reflexes threw me in front of the cowering Raven, frightful of death by her own mother. Mrs. Darkholme still pointed the gun at us and treaded closer.

"Get out of the way, Blake!"

"What are you doing! That's your fucking daughter!"

"I'm not going to let her ruin me in front of this town again like my _husband_, now _stand aside_!"

Was she crazy or something? What was she talking about!? All the other kids didn't leave entirely, though. They were just standing aside to watch-fearfully, I might add.

"Mrs. Darkholme, you don't know what you're doing! Put the gun down!"

"If you don't move out of the way, I'll shoot you too!"

"That's your _daughter_ you're trying to kill. Don't do this!"

"Stand aside!"

"No!"

Another gunshot. This time it didn't reverberate for so long like the last one. It actually got quieter. In fact—everything got quieter. And blurry, too. What was going on? Oh, no. Did she really just—

"Blake, oh my god!" Raven's voice was high-pitched and cracked, but muffled. I saw her blurry face looking down at me, eyes red and terror stricken. The last thing I remembered was the fact that she was in danger. I yelled at her, "_Ruuuun_!" But it only came out as a croak. I saw her face one more time until it slid out of view. Then everything went black.


	8. Chapter 8

I was riding my bike. This was a special bike, though. I bought it with my hard earned money I stole. It was blue, with a cruise wheel and one speed. Pretty nifty for the time. I was riding it down the sidewalk of a busy street in Phoenix, and went as far as the freeway entrance ramp. Despite there being signs which said, "No cyclers beyond this point," that didn't stop me. I went onto it anyway.

Oh yeah. Cars. That's why there shouldn't be cyclers beyond this point. I remember now. Luckily there weren't any cars on the road that could have hit me. I somehow had managed to contact my mother to come pick me up, since I didn't know where I was going. She drove past me, though, and couldn't stop for some reason. The freeway took me under an overpass, which had a sidewalk next to it. Good. Now I could get away from the busy traffic. I bumped up onto the sidewalk and noticed an entrance in the wall of the inside of the overpass with stairs going up. I leaned my bike against the wall to go up and check it out.

The stairs jaggedly spiraled. Up I went, all consequences being shoved to the back of my mind, now. For all I cared, that bike and the freeway didn't exist now. Neither did the stairs, after I stepped off them and into a beige concrete corridor with cut-open windows revealing green pastures outside. Wait! Some people were coming towards me.

They were only theme park employees, just doing their jobs. They passed me and smiled. I didn't return it though. Wasn't I just in Phoenix, though? Actually, never mind. Phoenix didn't exist anymore. The corridor had many doors on the left, probably to people's apartment rooms.

The one on the left at the very end, though, wasn't a small door at all. It was a grand entrance into a mall. I went in. It was a rather small mall. Still under construction, probably. The ceiling was massively high, and the shops had massive entrances, too, despite their commercial simplicity. I walked over to a sitting area and made my way over to the right, where the walls arched high above my head and connected to the ceiling. On either side of me were humongous steel columns holding the ceiling and stretching out all the way down the corridor. On my left, again, there was one more shop. It had dozens of shelves of pointless, colorful knick knacks, which had me beg the question on why there was such a large building to hold a shop like this. Actually, never mind. That wasn't important. What was important was the back of the shop. Only employees were allowed through this one door. Did I work there? I couldn't remember. All I knew was that it was important for me to go in there. The walls behind the "employees only" door were all brown and grimy. Metal shelves were lined up along each wall with some sort of equipment along them. I went over to the left and found another door.

This one took me into another tunnel. A round one, I might add. The door shut behind me, and everything was pitch black. That didn't matter, though. I could still see. I walked forward. I walked for a long time. Where was I? What was I doing? I was just supposed to walk along this tunnel. I didn't know why. I just did. That's all that mattered. It felt like forever. How long is that, though? What's that?

In the midst of all the darkness, there it was. A white speck. That's what I was looking for this whole time. My journey was almost over. I ran towards it, now. It grew larger and larger. It looked more like a spot, now. I sprinted harder. It only grew larger. It was mine, now. Nothing would get in my way. Just when it was within ten feet of range—no—twenty, I felt my body slow down. As hard as I tried to run, I couldn't help but decelerate. Actually, my feet weren't even on the ground anymore. Actually, where were my feet? They were below me running just a second ago. Now they're in front of me, and I was floating. How did that happen? I came to a complete stop right in front of a bright white barrier that was the speck from earlier.

The world was outside. I just knew it. How could it not be? But wait. What's that? Something entered from the world outside. It looked like a tube of some kind, floating towards me. It just then occurred to me that my stomach was really hurting me, too. Thank god I was getting help, now. The tube was actually a gun, though. Something with two barrels. It stopped just short of my pained stomach. Something small began floating out from my stomach, now. Two things, actually. No—three—four—a dozen. All of them went back into the barrel. My vision began to pixelate and get blurry. All colors in front of me had blended together to form a dark mauve. My eyes opened, and I was greeted into the world by a blinding white light.

It took me a moment to get adjusted to the light. Eventually, a ceiling fan came into focus. Around me were white walls, and to my left an IV which I was a hooked up to. I was in a bed, and at the foot—

A small child, of probably eight, stood there. As soon as my eyes laid upon him, though, he bolted out the door and turned down the hallway, both hands clasped around something presumably small.

Okay, I got it. I was in the hospital. I had a weird dream because I was unconscious. Why though? Who was that child just now? What happened?

Kids, I remembered. Kids my age. Lot's of them, on a street with forests behind me and houses in front. They all surrounded something. Something blue, I think. Raven! Shit, that's right! Raven was there. The kids were admiring her, right? Why did they stop, though? Gunshots. They scattered from the sound of a shotgun fired in the air. Mrs. Darkholme then pointed it at us, going berserk for some reason. She fired the shotgun again, but with it pointed at—

I pulled my shirt up over my stomach. I almost got sick just looking down at it. A wide spot of skin on my stomach was scarred. Stable-looking, but frayed, pointy, and callused. That's not something someone can easily recover from, though. Seeing how I was awake after probably some time, with recently healed gunshot wounds, it must have been a while.

Well, shit. What should I do? What's on the side of this bed, though? There were a few buttons, from what my fingers could feel. Looking over, I saw one with a nurse logo on it. I pressed that to page her in I guess.

After a few minutes there were some feet thumping in the distance. More, than two, though. A doctor and two other nurses burst in the room to see me sitting there confused.

"Hiya, doc. What's happenin' here?"

He looked stunned to see me looking so well, I guess. "How are y—!?" He rushed over and pulled my shirt up from my stomach just to see the same warped skin. He felt it, though.

"Ahaha! Careful, that tickles."

The doctor turned around and looked at the nurses. "Who was just in here!?"

"There shouldn't have been anyone in here, doctor." Said the skinny brunette. She looked pretty anxious, too.

"If it helps any, right when I woke up I saw a little kid running out of the room," I added.

"A kid!?"

"Yeah, a kid. I didn't get a good look at him, though. I think he was wearing a beanie and bluish-green coat."

The doc picked up the phone on my right bedstand and dialed something.

"Did you just see a kid in the lobby by chance—?" Then he gasped and hung up.

"What is it?" I asked.

"He just ran out the front door."

"What did he do, though?"

"Never mind, I'll explain later. How do you feel?"

"Hmmm, stiff all over, and my stomach is a little sore."

"We'll get that settled in a bit, Blake."

"Cool, thanks."

The doctor and the shorter nurse left. The tall skinny brunette stayed in the room, though. That's good, because I had a few questions.

"What's your name?"

"I'm Nurse Patty. Nice to finally meet you awake now, Blake."

"Yeah, sure. What day is it?"

"Tuesday."

"Sorry, I mean date."

"It's June fourteenth. You've been out for almost a month now."

My heart sunk. A _month_? How was that possible!? What did I miss? Where was Raven?

"Fill me in, huh? What happened since I got _shot_?"

Apparently, Nurse Patty had the whole story ready for me based on police reports, eye-witness accounts, my parents, and some of my friends just for when I woke up. She started off with Mrs. Darkholme being arrested. Good. I'm glad that bitch is locked up, and I hope she dies in there. Anyway, though, she was tackled by some kids while trying to reload for another shot at Raven. Raven had bolted lickety-split from the scene, and they held her down against the road. Gary had rushed back to my house to tell my parents, and Hannah called the cops with Mrs. Darkholme's phone. I was rushed to the hospital in critical condition and was slated to die soon when it was known that the pellets from the shotgun had been lodged into my spine and some of my internal organs. Doc couldn't properly remove them without killing me, and he was about ready to pull the plug a month later. On hearing that, I almost got sick. What was still inconclusive, though, was that last he checked, I still had my stomach cut open and wrapped in gauze to postpone the operating for another day. Now I was perfectly healed, it appeared.

"Could that kid have something to do with it?"

"That seems to be the only answer, but it just doesn't make sense to assume he operated perfectly with his bare hands without killing you, _and_ sealed the skin before we even got back! We're going to have to do an x-ray to see if you still have any pellets in your system."

"Sounds good."

"Oh, and your friends left you some things—" She pointed to the left side of my bed and grinned. I looked over and saw a massive pile of cards, flowers, and candy. Awwww, that was real nice of them.

One thing the nurse didn't know about was what happened to Raven. My guess was that she ran away and hid for a while, and only came back _after_ the story was pieced together for the nurse. Maybe she was just under my parents care, or something. Oh, god. I hope so.

The cards were really nice. None of them had any good information on the topic, though. I guess they didn't want to depress me with anything bad. But wait—no one writes letters on get-well-soon cards. They were all signed by specific kids, and I made a note to say thanks to all of them the next time I see them. They had corny jokes written in them, too. One said, "Here's a sweet-tart, sweetheart." There was a sweet-tart taped to the inside of it and a drawing of me getting shot for Raven. I guess those antics were pretty popular for other people to watch, too.

The x-ray didn't show any more bullets. I made a joke with them when putting those heavy aprons on me for radiation protection that they could just place a magnet up close to my stomach, and if it hurt like hell we would know there's still some bullets left. I made good friends with the doctors and nurses. After all, they did try _saving_ me and everything.

My parents came to visit me. There was crying. That happened. More importantly, I asked them what happened to Raven, but they didn't know either. She hadn't visited me, either, so what the hell happened to her?

After hearing that, no amount of get-well cards could make me feel better. The doctors eventually released me with nothing left to do, and I went home finally having missed the last couple weeks of school and finals. Oh well. I went around and visited everyone who had sent me a card, starting with Gary and Suzanne.

"Blake, you're alive!"

"Sure am, and thanks to you guys I feel loved!"

We chatted for a while, and eventually the topic of Raven came up. Guess how that happened?

"She hasn't come back yet since she took off, Blake. I'm sorry."

Fuck! I tried every other person's house who was there when the incident happened, and they all said the same thing. Gone, for a month straight. Oh god. Where did she get to?

In a retarded attempt to find her somewhere around the woods of the town (As if she'd stay out there for a month), I looked all around. Again, I checked at her spot, but it's obviously a no-go.

In light of this there were two things I wanted to do, other than just fret. First I forced my parents to take me to the county jail to see Mrs. Darkholme. She was suspiciously cheery to see me. I was only allowed to talk with her through a phone behind a glass pane.

"So, you lived from the shot after all."

"Yeah, thanks for that."

I really didn't want to be there, but I wanted to find out just one thing.

"Why did you try to shoot your own daughter?"

"Why should I tell you?"

"'Cause you're just feeling awfully sympathetic right now and you're grateful that someone came to visit you."

"Ha! Right..."

She sighed. "If you really must know, after my husband and I divorced, I became sort of the talk of the town. Every parent hated me then, and some even went up to me in the market and criticised me in public. This went on for about a year and a half, and I couldn't stand it after that. I made to living in my own house almost never going out ever again. The only thing keeping me from being fired from my job was my making up for it with longer hours at the office."

"So what does this have to do with Raven?"

"Let me finish!" She barked. "Then when I looked out the window a month ago, I saw _so_ many kids in front of my house. Then you and Raven came back, and she started showing off her looks to all of those twerps. I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't stand to be the biggest subject in the whole town, again, with parents complaining about me bringing up a "bad egg" or something. I had to stop her, so I—"

"Tried shooting her to death. You thought that would draw attention _away_ from you? Having a weird looking daughter _would_ bring ridicule on you, but _shooting_ her to death _wouldn't_!?"

"Oh, stop whining. I wasn't thinking straight."

"Clearly!"

"Are we finished here?"

"Yeah we are. I hope you rot in prison you blood-sucking whore!"

I had only one other person I could think to talk to. Despite it being summer, I knew where to find Ms. Weathers 'cause I once saw her walk into her house after school. I stood there waiting for a minute at her door and it clicked open.

"Oh, hi Blake. How are you feeling?"

"Fine I guess. Just thought I'd drop by." Really? What kind of a sentence was that? She's my _teacher_, not my friend. She didn't seem to regard it like this, though.

"Yeah, sure, come on in."

She admitted me to her house, which was sort of dark on the inside with lots of hunting trophies mounted on the walls. That kills me to think that this sweet little thirty-some year-old English teacher's two favorite activities were reading classical literature and murdering the shit out of animals. She knew what I wanted right away, though, as I sat down at her kitchen table.

"You know, Raven used to talk about you all the time."

At the time I wasn't sure whether to feel good about being on Raven's good side or bad because Ms. Weathers' used the phrase "used to," meaning she did once but can't now because she's gone. "Did she?" I replied.

She nodded. "Before you moved in to town, she had been going through a depression. She was getting too lonely, even with me there at lunch. Trust me, it was difficult preventing her from subduing."

"Yeah, well, she's a difficult person," I laughed.

"The first day you came in to class, you popped some sarcastic comment, and I thought it was funny, but standing where I was looking over the whole class, Raven was the only other one who got it. She turned blue in the face on hearing that."

"Wow!"

"It was then I realized that I could use you to save her life, because at this point I wasn't enough."

Wait, huh? What was she talking about?

"I told her that day 'Raven, if you don't go out and try talking to this boy, I'll make you.' It turns out I did."

"How did you—"

This is where things got really weird. She interrupted me spontaneously and said, "Blake, do me a favor and look at that lamp." She pointed across the room at a desk lamp sitting on her counter. "Stare at it and don't take your eyes off for anything."

I did as she said, until for some inexplicable reason Ms. Weathers caught my attention, and I couldn't help but look over at her. She hadn't done anything special to do it, though. "No, keep looking at it. Don't look at me." I stared at it again, but this time I instinctively looked over at the tree outside the window. I tried one more time, but my attention kept getting diverted by random objects around the room for no reason. The last time it happened though, she took her hands out from under the table and showed me some hand motion.

"What's wrong? You seem encapsulated by everything in the room other than that lamp."

"I don't know what's happening. I can't focus on it."

"You're welcome."

She grinned slyly at me. What is this? It was like someone told you to look at something and nothing else, but then a semi truck came at your face from the side. You'd look over, definitely, but the thing is these were just normal, unchanging, immobile objects. How was this happening? Was—was _she_ doing it? I looked over at her, and it was clear by my expression that I just wasn't getting it.

"You see, Blake. Raven and I are related in some way. She can turn into anyone, and I—" She flicked her hand again, and my attention shot over to the wall, "can divert anyone's attention to anything; more importantly, though, anyone."

Oh my god. There's two of them. There's two crazy people with magic powers. I couldn't believe it. Wait, yes I could! I believe Raven, why was this so odd? Now that I think about it, though, that's probably why the two were such good friends.

"It's just unfortunate that Raven is also cursed with a physical abnormality, while I'm not."

The truth dawned on me gradually. What potential this skill had! She could do anything, practically. That's probably how she makes friends, too. She probably snaps people's focus on her eyes, looks back at them, and then smiles. I bet that's exactly how her and Raven met. Come to think of it, I did notice that a lot of times when me or other kids started dozing off in her class or looking at other things, we shook out of it simultaneously and started paying attention again. What was this about _your welcome_ though?

"The day Raven walked up to you in the Cafeteria, I was there." She grinned. Oh shit.

This was her doing all along! Here I was thinking that I was some kind of badass for noticing the only girl without friends and being there for her and shit. That wasn't me though. Ms. Weathers had been using her fuckin' voodoo or whatever. Jesus Christ!

"You bastard!"

She just laughed. We actually knew each other enough for me to get away with that. "I'm sorry, but I had to do something."

"You just shattered my whole world. Still though—"

All this talk about Raven was really starting to upset me now. She could tell, too.

"So?" She asked.

"Huh?"

"So what are you gonna do?"

I could tell by her expression what she was suggesting. I couldn't believe a mature adult would hint at such a thing. But you know what? She was right. I couldn't go on.

With school over for the summer, no sign of Raven reported from any police officer looking, and no reason for living other than to be with her, I did the only thing I could think of. That night I took everything out of my savings, jacked my parent's car, and took off looking for her.


	9. Chapter 9

So far I've only told you a little over eight months of this story. I still have several more _years_ to go, so let me just skim over them for you. Remember when I said that there were only about two times in my life when I completely forgot what was happening? This is the second time. It started then and stopped just this afternoon.

Let me rephrase it a little, though. I didn't really _forget_ what happened. I just went along every day in a half-conscious state of mind trying not to think too hard. Much of my memory in this period of my life was very vague, so please be patient with me if I'm too indescript. It started after I drove dozens of miles to the next town North to see if Raven ran that way. Now, when I say I was _looking_ for her, really all that means is I drove through every street of the town hoping to coincidentally spot her wandering outside. As you may imagine, it wasn't the most efficient plan of action.

I stopped by in a motel that night, and it wasn't until I was really settled into my room when the magnitude of what I was doing really sunk in. I was basically running away from home! I didn't have that intention, but I just expected to find her soon and take her home with me. I felt sick to my stomach thinking about what my parents were thinking right now: worried, anxious, depressed over the loss of their son. My friends, too, would probably be pretty upset. I just gave so many people a shitty thing to cope with. It was killing me. I wanted to go home, but every time I got up to do just that, I couldn't keep going. I would just be going home without the only thing that held my life together. My mind delved on it all night, and I never got any sleep.

The next morning, my mind had resolved itself. It completely shut off the portion which fretted over things. I was a zombie now, looking for very specific and rare meat.

So there I went. Just driving from town to town, using all my money on gas and food, not thinking about finding a way to replenish it. There wasn't much. Only enough to let me last about a month. Once it was all gone, I found myself trapped in a city with no way to make more. Well—maybe there was one. Some bars would have cage fighting bets, and the one who wins the most would obviously get the most money. I struck out for that idea, and it proved useful. I guess my city-fighting skills finally paid off after all, literally.

I think the pattern of searching I chose was to go in a spiral around my home town. If she went anywhere, hopefully I could have intercepted her at some point. Remember when I mentioned how I couldn't imagine going about in life without Raven? I now understood. It was in a zombified, drab mental state which would distract me from how much hell it was.

Actually, it wasn't all bad. Eventually I decided to stop going in a spiral and check the most populated and well-known cities in the U.S. Maybe she just had an intuition to travel? I don't know. Either way, though, they were nice to tour. After all, I was going over every road.

I tried Manhattan, New York, first. Wow was it crowded! There were just so many people walking around. Not to mention the giant-ass skyscrapers! Basically, it was rather scenic going around to all these different places. I met all kinds of people, too, ranging from hookers to dead-beats. Actually, I can't really talk. I was basically a vagrant wandering the earth for a lost cause for all eternity.

The fight-for-money thing didn't always go perfectly, though. I only won about seventy-five percent of the time. This left my food and gas funds pretty short near constantly. I particularly remember one fight with this guy with funny-looking hair who head-butted me once and knocked me unconscious. It felt like a god damn hunk of fucking metal, I swear to god! Come to think of it—it kind of sounded like it, too.

From there I traveled the country, visiting places multiple times on my way to others. Why she would ever be in California, I would never know. That didn't stop me from going there, nevertheless. Yeah, it was getting desperate.

For a while I had been pretty isolated from the rest of the world. Not owning enough money for a hotel with cable, I never saw what was going on globally. I sure did start noticing it on the street, though.

Some trashy cities I visited were full of _freaks_! Like, seriously weird lookin' dudes. They were all different sorts of colors, some with _horns_, or _tails_. Some could eject objects from their skin, while other's could either run super-fast or shoot lasers from their eyes. Pretty bizarre, right? They were actually all over the place, but mainly in those areas. Being me, however, I didn't know what was actually happening with this. People in the cities would sometimes be pretty freaked out from them, but never anything apocalyptic. Sometimes these space-alien looking dudes would cause some serious trouble with the police and just blow them all away with some power I never thought imaginable.

It seems that I should have a bigger reaction to this, but two things kept me mellow on seeing it. The first thing was Raven. Even though I didn't directly connect the two at first, they seemed oddly familiar with their freaky looks and powers. The other was the half-conscious state, thing. That also kept me from connecting Raven to these people. It wasn't until about halfway into my journey when I actually learned a little something. I really wanted to get drunk at the time, and I had stopped by at someone's bar. They were playing the news, though, and the story was about—

"Mutants! Again?" The barman exclaimed. He quickly shut the TV off, tired of hearing this story or something. But wait—

"Hey dude, turn that back on! What was that?"

He looked at me quizzically and kind of annoyed. "Man, don't yous know already?"

"Know what? What was that about _mutants_?"

He studied me hard, seeing my dirty jacket and scruffy face. Clearly I was some sort of hermit. "You know! Them _freaks_?"

"You mean all those weird magic people ?"

"Y—yeah. Those people. They's got some sort of brain muck-up from birth, so that they have crazy powers and blow shit up now."

The guy to my left piped in. "It started from some global mutation that just broke out a few decades ago. We're just now noticing it."

"That's amazing! What can they do?"

"Boy, that's what's flipping the shit off them gov'ment scientist's asses right now! They don't know! Ever' single one-a them seem to have sum'n different."

"Yeah, and right now there are protests going on about whether mutants should identify themselves or not with the government. A lot of 'em protest for _mutant rights_, if you can believe that."

"Iss like they start killing us normal people to death, and wonder why we're so hostile. What's the sense in that?"

I didn't feel like getting in an argument with these gentlemen, but it was revolutionary for me to hear that finally. I went back to my car and drove to some parking lot to sleep in. Raven wasn't a demon, or anything supernatural like I thought. She was a _mutant_! She was born with some trait or disease that made her able to have superhuman powers. Hers was apparently shapeshifting. How did I miss this for so long? What the hell could have gone down the evolutionary chain to make a gene so powerful as to make someone almost invincible? Why so sudden, also? Was it some kind of solar flare? Could some astronomical or cosmic thing have happened that mutated a bunch of people at once? Raven's mom wasn't a mutant, though. But wait, what if her dad was? Is the trait recessive, or dominant? It must be recessive, or there should be way more mutants around. But actually, how do I know there isn't? After all, Ms. Weathers is a mutant, but no one but me and Raven knew that because she had to tell us.

Either way, Raven wasn't alone in the world, after all. She was only alone in our town, unless there _were_ other mutants. That was doubtful, though. I wondered if when she found all of this out like I did, she went on to protest with her brethren or something. After all, those guys in the bar said mutants kill humans. But as far as my knowledge goes, humans egged _Raven_ on! I guess she wasn't the only one suffering from this, 'cause later I would see news stories of huge mutant street fights where tons of people die and thousands of dollars of property damage are ensued. They were almost like gods! What are we thinking fucking with gods.

For a while that gave me good hope. Grand hope, actually. If I could somehow get my hands on the news stories, then maybe I could just find her on one, protesting in Washington or something. That way I would know she's alive and where she is. Thinking about Raven again made me sad, though. Sad and hopeful at the same time. Just like oil and water.

Within a few years, I had grown accustomed to knowing how to tune my in-car radio in each location on the map to a news station. They spoke about mutants about half the time, so I didn't have much a problem catching the stories when they came on. Mostly they were just about some incident between a mutant and other humans. Of course they never said anything about what the _humans_ did wrong. All that mattered was whether our boring, fat ass white people were comfortable or not. I would pick up newspapers, too, to try and find photographs, but to no avail. In burger joints, they sometimes had it tuned to channel three or something, but with subtitles on. Thank god I got so good at reading! There were sometimes protest stories, but none where I could clearly see Raven.

Who am I kidding? The odds of ever seeing her on the news was _so_ small. What would she ever be doing causing trouble like that? She's the shiest, most humble girl I know. She wouldn't be at the head of some angry mutant right's rally!

I sank into a deep depression from this. Don't get me wrong, I still kept looking. But deep down in my psyche I knew it was hopeless. It was like purgatory. My soul was eternally bound to an impossible task while my body lingered attached to it. I picked up smoking a lot. I think smoking had risen on the list of priorities over eating, actually.

Eventually it had occurred to me to commit suicide. Yep. That happened. I was infinitely hopeless and despairing. My stolen car was almost sputtering to its life's end from too much aimless travel. I was sitting in a coffee shop in New York holding some cyanide pills I had bought off a black market dealer. I sat there, contemplating the story of my life and how tragic of an end it would come to. I was right about to down them with the coffee—until it finally happened.

The TV screen mounted on the wall started blaring an emergency report. I put the pills down and looked up at the screen. Mutants were attacking a building for some reason. Wait—I recognized that building. That was just two miles north of this shop! What was going on?

Something like an explosion happened on the side. Dozens of glass panes shattered all on one side of the building, about half way up. Hang on though. They weren't just shattering on their own. There was a massive beam of red light bursting through each one, shattering them on impact, scanning across the whole front side of it from inside. Among all the carnage of office desks and papers flying everywhere, dozens of mutants of types I couldn't even classify were fighting each other. One pair in particular fought quite close to the edge of the blown openings, enough for the ground-level camera to see. One of the figures seemed to be fighting in a graceful-looking karate style, and was also rather dark—like a dark blue or something. The camera zoomed in on the action. Wait. She looked kind of blue with red hair—

"That's her! That's fucking Raven, right there!" I blurted out in the middle of the shop. The people in it looked around at me for a second. Fuck them! I was so happy! My life hadn't been wasted after all! The goal I had been searching for was finally here! In the same city as me of all coincidences, for Christ's sake! I didn't give a flying fuck what they were doing up there. I had to see her finally. I grabbed my coat, threw a twenty on the table for nothing, scooped up the soaked cyanide pills from a puddle of coffee and handed them to the bewildered waitress, tears rolling down my eyes.

"Here, take these." I said. "Throw 'em out for me; they're cyanide." I then bolted out the door and almost smacked someone in the face with the door. My heart was pounding so hard, and I started breathing like I ran a marathon. Jesus Christ! After all these years, there she was! I just knew it! Please god, let me make it in time.

The car worked for me one more time, and that was this time. I pushed her so hard flooring it to make it in time, that her engine blew just fifty feet to the base of the building. Above me were the sounds of smashing and absolute destruction way up in the building. Great plumes of smoke blew out from the gaping holes, too. Around the entrance to the building were dozens of police and firemen, with caution tape blocking me off. Just kidding. I rammed it like wet toilet paper, and before anyone could even tell me not to go into the "war zone" or whatever, I rushed in through the revolving door (which was already smashed to pieces for some reason).

Inside the lobby there was obvious evidence of radical destruction. The elevator was smoking from the inside, too, and plants and desks were overturned. No one was in here, though. Looks like I was using the stairs.

My heart was beating me up from the inside as I sprinted up the stairs: back and forth, back and forth. They went up a long way, too. Continued smashing could be heard from above. Suddenly, though, two guys fell into view towards me scaling the stairs. I leapt to the side, and they crashed there ripping at each other with massive claws and almost unhurt by the drop. I sidled past them going at it and kept climbing. The sounds of the destruction were growing louder.

Three more floors up, and the sounds diminished. Oh no. Was I too late? One more floor to go. My lungs were gasping for air, and I almost collapsed. Finally, though, I came out at the breeziest floor with the gaping hole in the side. Rows and rows of desks were overturned and smashed. Long lines of scorch marks were left in many of the walls. The floor itself had generated pitfalls. For whatever reason, there were like five or six people, some of them young teenagers, standing there with tight black fighting gear and an "X" shape on their backs. They all stood there, gazing out at something from the opening. A sixty-some year-old man with a spartan helmet and cape or something was standing on a large sheet of floating metal outside the window with someone next to him—

"Raven! Stop!" They were already flying away into the smoke-filled sky. I pushed my way through these fuckers watching, running towards the opening.

"_Raven! Noooooo!_"

Out in the distance I could see her, with her arm over the shoulder of the old geezer, turn her head to look at where the sound was coming from.

"_Raven!"_

It was too late. She was gone out of sight. I looked out into the smoky sky for one last moment and just lost it. I picked up a table leg and viciously thrashed the shit out of the nearest pile of debris and desk.

"_Fuck!_ I was _too—fucking—late! Shit!_" I continued cursing and beating the garbage, pointlessly of course. I was enraged beyond all understanding, though.

Finally after turning what was already broken into smaller bits of pulp, I fell to my hands and knees just looking at the ground. Behind me I heard heavy feet pound the ground. "Who's this guy?"

"I don't know," one of them whispered.

Let them talk. Let everyone talk about me! I don't care anymore! They can all have a fucking _parade_ about me for all I cared anymore. I lost her _again!_" In the midst of my fury I almost jumped at some light touch on my shoulder, which expanded into a gloved hand. There was a very warm, sensitive voice coming from my left.

"Were you close to her before?" It said.

I looked over and saw a tanned face (Carribean I think), with smoky-white hair and large, kind, glittery eyes. She was part of the fighting group on the floor. Her caring inquiry calmed me down a bit.

"You have no idea."

"You mean the girl who escaped, right?"

"Yeah."

She looked me over a minute, and seemed to come to a decision. "Could you give me one second?"

She stood up and went back over to her black-clad compatriots and silently conversed with them. Who were these people? How did they annihilate the building so bad? She came back over and kneeled down next to me again.

"Come with us. We'll help you find her again."

Wait, seriously? What relationship did these strange soldiers have with Raven? Were they serious? Well, I had no other lead then, so I just agreed and followed them.

"Wait," said the gruff one with large claws who almost fell on me earlier. We listened carefully and heard the police and state troopers rushing up the stairs to join in on the expired action.

"We better go another way," said the Caribbean one. She pulled out some com device and spoke into it. "Colossus, get up here. We're being pinned down."

I guess this fellow responded, but I couldn't really hear it. My thoughts were drowned out by the roaring sound of rockets. There was blazing smoke outside the hole in the building and suddenly, there appeared a weird jet. Seriously! Right out of thin air. But _you_ already know this, don't you?

"Follow me." Whatever. My day was already weird enough having finally found what I've been searching for and missing it just barely while running into a battlefield with mutants, and now a hovering invisible jet just appears out of no where! I followed her, though. Clearly whatever group of people she was a part of who could build invisible jets could simply _locate_ a _person_. I and the rest of these vigilante mutants scaled the entrance ramp under the bottom of the jet. The walls were lined with benches or something, and up front some more spiffy looking seats with seat belts. The guy flying it was some big guy with black hair and a muscle shirt. The ramp closed to the view of soldiers rushing into the destroyed floor of the building, and we took off. I had to grab hold of a side railing in order not to trip and _die_.

Looking out the front window, the jet flew off into the sky. It stabilized for a bit, and everyone finally relaxed and sat down. The wolf guy with claws who almost fell on me finally broke the silence.

"So who's _this_ joker?"

"He claims to have known Mystique at one time. If we bring him to the professor, we may be able to find some sort of clue as to what her and Magneto were doing in this complex today," said the Caribbean. I wasn't really paying attention, though. All that was on my mind was having finally seen Raven again after all these years of searching. Even though I didn't stop her from leaving, I still _found_ her, and now I know she's alive and well. This was the biggest step I ever made in this long, tiring, miserable journey. Eventually the weirdos addressed me again. This time a teenage girl with long brown hair and freckled cheeks asked me:

"So um, who are you, and how do you know Mystique?"

"Okay, why is everyone calling her Mystique? Her name's _Raven_ goddamnit!"

The Caribbean cut in again. "Mutants like to go by different names than they were born with, sometimes. That's hers, and mine's _Storm_, or Ororo Munroe. This is Logan, also _Wolverine_—" She pointed at the wolf guy. "Flying the jet is _Colossus_. This is Kitty Pryde—" she put her hand on the teenage girl's shoulder, which sank through like a ghost. "That's Scott Summers, also _Cyclops_—" this fellow had a pair of reddish shades on which went all around the front of his head. "That's _Iceman_, Bobby Foster, and _Rogue_." She pointed at a blonde boy and a girl with brown hair but with one blonde streak in the front.

This was rather interesting. Mutants, who dress up in fighting gear, fly around in an invisible jet, have _nicknames_ (which I guess were based off their powers), and fight other mutants?

"Who are you guys?"

Storm smiled slyly.

"We're the X-Men," she said.


	10. Chapter 10

There you have it. That was pretty much the exact story I told to Professor Xavier, now told to you. My mind was lost for a minute having nothing else to tell, until I just realized.

"I'm sorry, have I been talking this whole time?"

Oh no, I have! The nice old professor had his eyes closed and was sleeping—I think. Wait, no. His eyes opened then with no evidence of ever having nodded off.

"Of course. Thank you for that. I enjoyed listening very much."

"How long was I talking!?"

He checked a clock above my head. "Looks like about an hour or two. Why?"

"I completely forgot I was even telling this story to somebody. Jesus! I'm sorry. I got _way_ carried away!"

"Don't fret about it. That'll happen. While you recounted your past experiences, I had been honing in on them from over here for a better visual-aid. I hope you don't mind, but that does tend to make people forget about the fact that they're talking to me."

That was totally trippy. The story had concluded right where I just was, right now. I was literally on the jet like ten minutes ago since I started talking. I was about to start telling him about how some bald guy asked me to tell a story when reality rushed back into my senses. He looked at me seriously then.

"I'm glad you shared this with me, Blake. You're probably wondering why I cared so much about all of this."

"Yeah, actually, I am."

"It's because I knew Raven personally. The day you were shot and she fled, she ran North of your home town. I know this because I found her sneaking into my house one night trying to steal food. I had known then that she was homeless or lost, for obvious reasons..." He was talking about her default blue form. "I told her then that she didn't have to steal anything because I would let her keep it, and as a matter of fact she could stay here and live with me if she wanted. She declined at the time and ran off, but a day later came back and agreed. I tried asking her what happened to where she got here, and all she seemed to have remembered was she was rejected in school by everyone and her mother tried to kill her. I'm a mind reader, and that's about all I could find in her head. There's about a year of her memory that's repressed, and I can't find it in the recesses of her mind. What I think happened was she repressed the memory of you being shot, and everything before that as well so she would have no recollection of a horrible moment in her life."

It slowly started to sink in. While Raven was basically stable and present in the Professor's own home, I had been traversing the whole country to find her and hadn't thought about looking around the area she originally fled from. How could I have been so stupid! God Damn it, I probably could have found her if I had, like, searched houses in the nearby towns instead of just driving everywhere like an asshole! Shit!

"For years I fostered her in my home, until moving out to start on a little project. You said you saw an old man with her, right?"

"Correct."

"His name is Magneto. We were good friends growing up, but he slowly changed over time to where I couldn't be with him anymore. He is a mutant, like Raven and I, but far more powerful than most average mutants. He can control and manipulate metal."

I was absolutely enchanted to find out what Raven was doing with this guy.

"He believes that all mankind should be enslaved by mutants, since they have the power to and have been rejected by common society for too long. You're already aware of mutant outrage, are you not?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"It is a self-catalysing effect. Mutant outrage creates aggression which causes more mutant outrage. My life's work has been about bringing both sides to peace before total chaos breaks out. That's why I opened this school, you see? To educate mutant children properly to control their powers and use them responsibly."

"So what about Raven and this Magneto fellow?"

"Ahh, I was just getting to that. Magneto, obviously, needs followers to carry out his plans of wiping what he calls 'homo-sapiens' off the face of the planet. Raven, Magneto, and I all worked on founding this school for mutant children. The only problem is Magneto had begun convincing her that the society of humans didn't want mutants around, including her. He wanted her to join him in his task of eradicating all of humanity."

"Why would she want to do that? _I_ was there for her! And so were other kids later—"

"Because she forgot, remember? She doesn't remember you or any of that anymore. As far as she's concerned, everyone hated her. Magneto took advantage of this and turned her against humans, which she gladly took on in vengeance against the ones who made her an outcast. Now, what you saw today was an essential clue as to how we can find them."

"How so?" I inquired. Up until this point I still didn't know what she or the _X-Men_ were doing there brawling.

"Again, Magneto is trying to build an army to destroy the human race. What him and Raven were up there for was to try and find the particular files of some specific and powerful mutants. They are currently being held prisoners for past aggressions, but he needs the files to be able to find where they were locked up. I know all this, because Ms. Pryde brought this back for me after she snatched it from Raven's hands." He placed the files on the table for me to examine. They were basically criminal files for different mutants and their powers. One of them was for some fellow named Juggernaut, who from what I can tell just breaks things. "I'm feeling, maybe, if we try to use this as bait, we can lure them into a trap and you can maybe speak with Raven and hopefully recapture those lost memories so she can join our side."

Oh, yes! This was so beautiful to hear. It's been so long since I've heard a definite plan of action. "But, wait. How did you guys know they were going to be in that building, anyway?"

"Because once upon a time, the X-Men were forced to work alongside her and Magneto to stop one William Stryker from assimilating all mutants. One of our friends who can teleport overheard them planning this one night, and he told us later when they turned on us by reverting the machine to destroy all humans."

"Wait. Was that when—?"

"Yes, Blake. You obviously felt it too."

About a month ago, while searching for Raven, I got this blistering headache which got so painful I felt like I was going to die. It ended after a few minutes, though, and I think the president addressed the nation after that or something. I guess I wasn't the only one. I considered all that the professor told me then.

"So how are we going to lure them in?"

"Simple…"

That night, the Professor had let me stay in one of the rooms of his mansion-school for the night. I hadn't had that refreshing of a time in forever. I showered the years of grime off me, shaved, ate a decent meal, and slept in an actual bed for once. Since wasting the first lot of my money on motels, I decided to just save it and sleep in my car from then on. I did, and this bed was just heaven, now. Still, though. My thoughts plagued me. What would I have to do to jog her memory? Would my face on-sight do it? What if she does remember, but after so long of working for Magneto doesn't care anymore? Oh God, I would die, then.

The next day I found out that the Professor had arranged to send a message over to Magneto and let him know (and yes, this is blunt) that if he wanted the papers on the dangerous mutant convicts that he would have to come over and fight for them. By that I mean come back over to the same office building he originally tried to get them from. Somehow he gained approval for this by the president. Must have been a pretty long conference call. Either that, or since the building was so trashed that it wasn't worth trying to fix anymore.

While staying in Xavier's School for Gifted Children, I started to get to know everyone. Storm could control weather and liked shocking people with bolts of lightning. Cyclops could shoot lasers out of his eyes. Pardon me, let me rephrase that. He _shot_ lasers out of his eyes. Yeah. He couldn't even control them. They just fired infinitely for all of time. That's why he wears the shades. They keep the lasers back until he opens the shutters on them at will to fire. With that in mind, how was he even born without melting his mom?

The girl, Kitty Pryde, could walk through walls. Rogue siphoned people's powers by touching them, and Iceman—just take one guess what he does. Colossus could turn into metal. I found all of this fucking awesome when they showed me. Why would humans hate these people? If I went to school with kids like this, I would want to make _immediate_ friends with them, so they can beat the shit out of dumb asses for me.

The only sort of confusing guy was Wolverine. I think his power is that he rapidly regenerates his flesh. From what I could make out, he was part of an experiment where an indestructible metal called Adamantium was grafted over his skeleton. He was also given metal claws that shoot out of his knuckles, I think. Basically, he wasn't one to fuck with.

Really none of these people were good to fuck with. They all had ways to basically kill your ass in a second if they wanted. I didn't. I know that much.

Strangely enough, the professor asked me to fight with the X-Men this time. Against mutants? Was he crazy?

"I just need you to be able to hold yourself up as long as it takes to find Raven and talk to her."

"Well, I guess I can try. You have any weapons lying around this school?"

"No, not really. I can give you some money if you need to pick something up."

I wasn't one to decline a nice offer. After all, I saw something from that black market guy who sold me the cyanide. I found him at his apartment again one day, and he started out kind of cold with me.

"Oh, hey bud. Weren't you the guy I sold the cyanide, too?"

"Uh, yeah actually."

"Well, you's still alive, so I can tell you didn't use 'em."

"Yeah, I changed my mind at the last second."

"Mmmm… so, you're comin' for ya money back?" He gave me a cold stare.

"Oh, no! That's not it. That money's yours. I just wanted something else."

A wave of relief flushed past his face. "Oh, thank God. I thought I gotta beat yer ass for a second."

"Actually, it's funny you bring up beating, 'cause there's something else I want."

"Huh?"

"Got any brass knuckles?..."

Hell, I liked punching people, so what better way to do that in a legitimate battle than with those? I added my own touches to it, though. I felt like making my punches more personal and had it embossed with "B.E.C.," my initials. That way each punch would crack someone's blood vessels under my own label.

Back in the school, I noticed something wrong with Cyclops, for some reason. He seemed distant to talk with me, or anyone for that matter. Storm later told me:

"He lost his girl to the flooding of a lake." I'm sorry I asked at the time. That would definitely make _me_ moody and pissy.

The day came for when we would have to fight to win Raven over and not lose the packets at the same time. I was given them to hang onto, for some reason.

Either way, we all landed shortly outside the office building again, and went up to it. The area was cleared out for citizen's safety. Magneto already had an army who occupied the building. We would have to fight our way up. I had this strange feeling that he knew our true intentions for some reason. Maybe not, though.

Cyclops started off the fighting when he blasted his laser through the revolving door at some other mutants working for Magneto. We basically all stormed in and started fighting.

The _worst_ fight I ever had was with Josh. The _best_ fight I ever had was right now. Boy, those assholes had no idea what was coming to them when a weak little human left his initials in their face.

"You know, for a guy without any mutant gene's, you sure are a good fighter," said Wolverine. Wow. That guy never says _anything_ nice. To be perfectly honest, though, I actually took a lot more damage from that fight than I would have liked. This way and that there were mutants fighting other mutants, and I had to butt in on a lot of them to just—Blam! Really knock 'em out, you know?

But wait. I had a goal in mind. Raven was probably at the top waiting with Magneto for some reason. If he was up there, this might be difficult. I trekked up the floors, again, dodging this guy and that, and getting stabbed and burned quite a few times by other assholes. Eventually, there she was. Back on the floor with the gaping hole. I was so ecstatic to see her again, up close like this. The only problem was—

"What are you doing way up _here_, you tiny homosapien?" That voice! It was just so cocky, but spry at the same time for an old man. He almost sounded happy to see me. I looked right into Raven's face hoping she would recognize me immediately. She stood there staring, though.

"Raven. I haven't seen you in _so_ long. Where have you been?"

"Who are you? What are you talking about?" Damn it. I guess I would have to try harder than that.

"Raven, don't you remember? It's me, Blake. Blake _Carlson_?" I started walking towards her, but holy shit! She kicked me right in the chest and I flew back against the wall. Damn, what a kick! Where did she learn that from?

"My name is Mystique! Don't even think about calling me that, human."

"That isn't your fucking name! It's Raven Darkholme! I know this because we were friends once in high school!"

She threw a punch at me now, but this time I was ready. I deflected it with my palm, and she swung a round-house kick at my head. I clutched that under my arm, and she leaped over my head and kicked me in the back of the neck. She was fuckin' _strong_.

"_My_ name is _Mystique_ now. My family tried to _kill_ me when I was in highschool, so I ran away. _I_ don't _know_ anyone named Blake Carlson!"

"Yes you do! I don't want to fight you, I just want to talk. What year did you leave high school?"

She was standing over me now, and I was lying back. All those years fighting other guys in bar rings only showed up a couple as tough as her. They also showed me how to fight back to someone like this. I rolled backward as she approached me and stood up again. She smiled slyly seeing my efforts to stay up.

"Sophomore year."

"Wrong! It was the very end of junior year. You're just repressing that whole year we were together for some reason!"

She grabbed me by the shoulders, head-butted me, and tossed me backward and I tumbled through some rubble. Despite the fact that I loved her and was trying to help her, this was starting to get really annoying. I took my brass knuckles off and gave her a threatening look.

"I'm gonna talk to you even if I have to beat your ass to do it, girl."

She leaped towards me doing a backflip for some reason, and I tackled her into the ground and started slapping her silly.

"Snap out of it, dude! Don't you remember the first time we met?" I pinned her down by her wrists. "You came up to me with the guys and asked to sit with us, but like assholes they told you to leave. I found you like three days later and sat with you then, and we talked!"

"He seems to be very fond of you, Mystique. Shall I just kill him for you?" Butt in Magneto.

"No, let me." She flipped me around on my back and started strangling me with one hand. I continued to choke out:

"I'm not lying, Raven! Remember Stacy, and how she told you to fuck off? I told her to go shove her dad's cock up her ass and you laughed your fucking face off!"

She exhaled a small laugh just now, actually. "Oh, did I now?" Continually choking me. The world was starting to fade out again. She had my hands pinned down with her _feet_ of all things, while sitting on my chest. I grabbed her by her neck with my ankles behind her back and threw her off of me. Before she could recover, I got kind of crazy and socked her in the nose. She stood there clutching her face, and you have no idea how much it sucks to have to do that to the one you love. I acted quickly, though, and pulled her left foot out from under her so she twirled and fell backward, and I grabbed her in a full nelson and pushed her against the ground.

"You hated her because she was always bullying you the worst of anyone. Remember all those assholes who would constantly throw their shit at us just for being friends?"

"Get off me, you shit head!"

"I felt bad about it, though, and always kept getting into fights for you!"

"You did not. You were never in my life at all."

"Yeah, I did. I did because I liked you and felt sorry that you were so lonely. You're shitty mom wanted you to be lonely all the time too, because she was just scared about everyone looking at _her_ funny."

She finally stopped struggling with me upon hearing this. Yes! I got her.

"She always brought up the excuse that she was trying to protect you by saying her husband left her for another woman, and that she didn't want you to go through the same trauma of being rejected by a boy who saw you for who you really were."

She was breathing sort of heavy now. "How do you know about that!"

"Mystique, please. Can't you just let me kill him now. Obviously Charles tapped into your memories and told him to act—"

"No I'm not! Shut the fuck up! Raven!"

She was intent on listening now. Still, though, she threw me off but didn't come at me again. Her face was aggressive and threatening, but scared.

"That's why she forced you to hide yourself in that disguise you invented for yourself with the black hair, and—"

"Okay, really. Who _are_ you, and how did you figure so many things out about me?"

"I was your fucking boyfriend! You told me everything. You wanted to show me your true form once, and we did it at like two in the morning, and it was raining, and I was kind of quiet for too long, and you thought I was repulsed by you."

Her eyes grew red as I went on.

"It took me a week to convince you that I actually liked you the way you truly looked. The way you truly look _now_, I might add."

Tears started forming in her eyes. Her whole body shook, and she clearly wasn't into fighting anymore. I walked toward her slowly.

"We sat at the top of the cliff along the lake, and it was your favorite spot to go to be alone when you were you couldn't keep up with life. _I_ got scared and thought you had killed yourself once, but you were just sitting there being lonely is all. Then we sat there, and you told me that I was the only reason you hadn't actually committed suicide in the beginning of the year! Then you asked me if I would ever kill myself with you if the circumstances were ever right, and I told you yes!"

She now had this huge look of familiarity and almost couldn't hold herself up anymore.

"I loved you Raven, and you loved me. We should have been together always if it wasn't for your mom who went berserk and tried shooting you! But she shot me instead and you got away!"

Finally she cracked. "Blake!?"

"Yes! It's me! I've come back for you!"

She gave in and fell forward. I caught her in my arms, though.

"Oh my god, Blake! How are you still alive! I thought you d-died!"

"I don't know, but I came back for you, Raven! I've been looking for you ever since you disappeared!"

She was holding my face into hers now and crying. Crying for all the years she had forgotten and all the pain she had dealt with in thinking I was truly dead. Her tears overflooded and crushed the dams of her repressed, traumatic memories about the loss of the only friend and true love she ever had. Not trying to show off or anything, but it's just the truth.

"Come home with me, Raven. Let's go back and we'll live with my parents for a while. _Our_ parents. Parents who don't shoot their kids."

She looked over at Magneto now, tears still on her face. "Eric—?"

"You can't be serious!"

"Please Eric. I love him."

"You _love_—the homosapien? Really, Mystique. This is ridiculous. Only one boy you used to know likes you and you want to throw all this effort away?"

She looked at him now, out of words to say. Tears ran down her face as she looked into Magneto's eyes, and he thought for a second.

"I think you're just in a mood and need to think things over." He waved his hand and rebar shot out from under the demolished floor of this building. It wrapped itself around Raven's arms, legs, and torso and yanked her into the air.

"No! Stop! What are you doing!?"

"Goodbye, _Mr. Darkholme_. And thanks for these," he waved the mutant convict papers in front of me. I guess that's what he was doing while wandering around during our trip down memory lane. Shit. Why did I even bring those in the first place? Honor?

"Eric, no. Put me down!"

But it was too late. Magneto hovered out the building with her and had taken her away from me again.


	11. Chapter 11

Professor Xavier was happy with me when I returned. Isn't that weird? I thought he'd be pissed off at me for losing the papers and not even getting Raven to our side. He seemed convinced that she wouldn't be able to work for Eric anymore after my appearance. Not with the same affection anymore, at least. It made me feel sick thinking about her being affectionate for that old asshole. Despite failing once again to have her come home with me, I was pretty happy, too. I hadn't had an intimate moment like that with her in eight years. Now that I have, she shouldn't be spending too much time with the asswipe anymore.

The only problem is what if she's being held hostage? Would I have to go save her with the X-Men or something? Would they even be willing to? After all, this is my problem they're being so kind to help me solve. I asked the professor about it once.

"It's unlike Magneto to hold a mutant against their will to fight alongside him. I think he legitimately believed that she just needed some time to relax and get her mind straight. I know that she won't, though. You're too important for her to just ignore, especially after knowing you're still alive after the shot. In time, I believe she will find her way here on her own."

"You don't think he would hurt her, do you?"

"Magneto only hurts humans. Rarely will he harm another mutant if he doesn't have to."

"I sure hope you're right. Still, though, I feel bad about losing those papers."

"Don't worry about it. Let me tell you, Raven has caused more damage for Magneto than all of those mutants ever will _combined_. Trust me, you won us a lot more than you lost."

I told him I would check into a nearby hotel just to get out of his space, now.

"Thank you for everything you've done to help me, Professor Xavier. You don't know how much it means to m—"

He started tapping on his own bald head, with his eyebrow raised.

"Right. Yes you do. I forgot. Ha ha."

"And I should thank you for helping us render Magneto helpless. After all, he is highly dependent on Raven to do almost everything for him."

I said goodbye, and he told me if there was any new news he would tell me about it. I said goodbye not knowing this would be the last time I'd ever see him again.

I waited weeks for a response. I never got one. I sat bored in the hotel room, just worrying some more. I started thinking things like, "Why the fuck would Raven come back to _you_? You're not even out there looking for her right now." Soon I became depressed again at how lonely things were.

Not only that, but I felt like a complete asshole when I went back to Xavier's School for Gifted Children. I saw Storm, and just went,

"Hey Storm. Is professor around?"

"Oh, god. You don't even know yet, do you?"

"Know what? What happened?"

"The professor is dead, Blake."

I was heart stricken on hearing that. Professor Charles Xavier? Dead? I'm not the only one who noticed this or anything, but the professor was one of the nicest, most generous and understanding people I'd ever met. How could he possibly be dead?

She told me that an ex-student of his who was thought to be dead almost a month ago (Cyclops' woman) had actually come back somehow, except her dangerously high mutant level threw her into unstable hysterics. She apparently killed the professor, and Cyclops in the state of her mind that she couldn't control. I was almost sick knowing he was gone, now. He meant so much to me.

It made me feel really bad, though, because I had already come all the way there to try and get any updates on my own selfish problems, and yet everyone in the school was weeping over the death of their, essentially, only true father-figure. I couldn't put myself to ask.

Instead, I kind of lost hope again. I sat around the hotel, thinking about what I should do next. Maybe I'd better move back into my parents house and try getting them a new car. All these years I wasted just to see Raven only once. Life well spent.

I went back over to the school one more time to say goodbye, but something I didn't expect to happen just happened. Storm came up to me smiling and holding something paper.

"Mail for you. Guess who it's from?"

I tore the envelope open eager to see what she sent. Oh my god! This was the first kind of contact that I had gotten from her, finally! Would it all finally come full circle?

This is what the letter read:

_Blake,_

_I have so much to tell you, and so little paper to write it on, so bear with me. I didn't want to go back with Eric, again, since I last saw you alive. He forced me away again, and you're never going to believe how he let me leave, finally. After he took me back to his base, I left to go get a drink to calm my nerves. Lately I've been doing that a lot with him._

_In the bar, some cop spotted me because my damn eyes flickered again, and he basically beat me down and arrested me. It was hell being in that police car all tied up. He was especially rude, too._

_I guess it's just his job, seeing how I've done loads of illegal things that Eric told me to do in his little project. Only they brought me to a jail room for a while and interrogated me on telling them his base of operations. I couldn't bring myself to do it, though, because even though he may have forced me to go with him later, he took care of me for so many years._

_They delivered me through an armored truck along with the other mutant convicts, and Eric busted me out. Yeah, they didn't realize that armored trucks were made of metal, I guess. When I went to greet him, though, some guy shot a mutant X gene cure dart at Eric. I got in the way and lost my powers. I know you always liked me better the way I was, but I'm sorry. It made me into a standard human, right there on the floor of the armored truck. I can't even morph anymore. Guess what, though? Eric left me there! He didn't even care that his most loyal follower was shot with a mutant cure. He took one look at me and said "I'm sorry dear. You're not one of us anymore." He broke my heart, Blake. I don't have anyone else but you, now._

_I'm sorry for forgetting about you all these years. I seriously forgot everything shortly after you were shot and Charles found me. I love you more than life itself and I want to be with you forever._

_I already gave the FBI all of Eric's secrets, now, so hopefully they'll be able to take him down. I'll be at Xavier's school in a few days, so wait for me. I can't wait to see you again!_

_The one who loves you,_

_Raven Darkholme_

_P.S. I enclosed a photo of myself just so you know what to watch out for, since I don't look all blue anymore._

Raven was finally coming back to me. I took out the picture, and oh my god!

You know that disguise she invented that was supposed to look like her if she maybe wasn't a mutant? Imagine if that disguise was a real person who grew older. She looked just like that. Black hair cut short of her shoulders, wide smile, blue, sparkly eyes. I couldn't even believe she was so spot-on back then. My insides jittered with excitement knowing she would be back in my life again. I went back over to the school _that day_ so as not to miss her. She wasn't there that day. Nor was she there the day after that. She finally arrived three days after sending the letter and wow! There she was, standing at the end of the driveway of Xavier's, arms full of suitcases as her taxi drove away. She didn't care, though. She dropped those motherfuckers and we ran at each other like bullets. We crashed together, happier than we'd ever be, kissing and hugging each other. It was like one long nightmare was finally coming to an end.

Storm had offered us a position on the X-Men team. No shit, right? I asked Raven if she hadn't lost those karate skills she kicked my ass with, and she was like, "Well, no. Why would I?" I was also still good at punching and beating things with my fists, too. We both agreed, but I pulled her aside for a sec.

"Hey, Raven."

"What is it?"

"Um, I haven't seen my parents, really since we got separated. Do you think maybe we could go back and just visit them?"

"Well of course, Blake. I love your parents."

"It's just that, I've been searching for you a long time."

"I know you have. You should tell me about that sometime," She whispered.

That's about the last of it now. The last interesting thing that happened was that Magneto had rounded up an army and attacked Alcatraz, which was being used to produce the cure for the mutant gene. Raven and I were back at my parent's house so I could reunite with them and apologize for abandoning them. The news showed some serious, shit, though. The X-Men helped fight for the mutant who was apparently being used to produce the cure. I felt bad that I wasn't there, though. It's not like I could rush all the way to Alcatraz Island and help or anything. Eventually, though, the copter cams showed the oceans rising up around the island. What the hell was going on? In a few minutes, though, they fell back down.

My story comes to an end right about here. I have nothing else to say. From here on out, I was complete and whole with the love of my life back in my arms again. Raven and I just headed back to Xavier's School for Gifted Children to be—well—X-men, and fight for the right of mutants everywhere. Everyone already part of the group welcomed us with open arms, and for the first time in our lives, we were accepted as one.


End file.
